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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/futureofscienceOOrena 



THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE 



23g tfjc Same glutfjor. 



HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 

Vol. I. 

TILL THE TIME OF KING DAVID. 

Demy 8vo, $2.50. 

Vol. II. 

FROM THE REIGN OF DAVID UP TO THE 

CAPTURE OF SAMARIA. 

Demy Svo, $2.50. 

Vol. III. — In Press. 



THE 



Future of Science 



BY 



ERNEST RENAN 



" Hoc mine os ex ossibus meis et caro de came mea 







BOSTON 
ROBERTS BROTHE 
1891 






Q7? C$ 



PRESSWORK BY JOHN WlLSON AND SON. 

University Press. 



12- 3&C/® 






PREFACE. 



The year 1848 made an exceedingly keen impression 
upon me. Until then I had never given a thought 
to socialistic problems. Those problems, starting 
from the earth, as it were, and frightening people, 
got hold of my mind and became an integral part 
of my philosophy. A paper on the study of Greek 
in the Middle Ages which I had begun in answer 
to a question of l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles 
Lettres had engrossed all my thoughts. After that I 
passed my examination as Doctor of Philosophy 
in September. Towards October I felt myself again. 
fl felt the need of summing up in a volume the 
new faith which with me had replaced shattered 
Catholicism?! This took me the last two months 
of 1848 and the first four or five months of 1849. 
The beginner's naive but ambitious dream was to 
publish that big volume there and then. On the 
15th July, 1849, I gave an extract from it to La 
Liberie de Penser with a note to the effect that the 
volume would appear in a few weeks. 

It was a great piece of presumption indeed. 
About the time I wrote those lines, M. Victor Le 
Clerc bethought himself to have me, in conjunction 
with my friend Charles Daremberg, entrusted with 



vi Preface. 

various researches in the public libraries of Italy 
in connection with the literary history of France 
and a thesis I .had began on Averroism. This 
journey which lasted eight months influenced my 
mind very materially. The artistic side of life 
which had till then been almost closed to me re- 
vealed itself resplendent and comforting. A fairy 
wielding an enchanting power seemed to say to me 
what the Church in her hymn says to the wood of 
the Cross. 

Flecte ramos, arbor alta, 
Tensa laxa viscera, 
Et rigor lentescat ille 
Quern dedit naticitas. 

A sort of soothing breeze made me unbend, nearly 
all my illusions of 1848 vanished as utterly impossible 
of realization. I became aware of the fatal necessities 
of human society, resigned to a state of things in 
which a great deal of evil is the necessary condition 
of a small amount of good, in which an imperceptible 
quantity of aroma is extracted from an enormous 
caput mortuum of spoiled matter. 

I became reconciled in certain respects to the 
reality, and when on my return I took up the book 
written a twelvemonth before I found it to be harsh, 
dogmatic, sectarian and hard. 

My thought in its primary shape lay on my back_ 
like a load sticking out on all sides and getting 
entangled everywhere. My ideas too autocratic for 
conversation were still less fit for publication as a 
whole. Germany, whose pupil I had been for some 
years, had made me too much in her own image 
and that in a kind of production in which she does 
not shine, in " book-making." I felt convinced 



Preface. vii 

that French readers would find all this insufferably 
clumsy. 

I consulted several friends, especially Augustin 
Thierry, who treated rne like a son. This worthy 
man finally persuaded me not to make my entree 
in the literary world with this enormous bundle on 
my head. He predicted a complete failure with the 
public and advised me to proceed piecemeal, to con- 
tribute to the Revue des Deux Mondes and to the 
Journal des Debats articles on various subjects in 
which I would get rid retail of the stock of ideas 
which presented in compact bulk would inevitably 
frighten the reader. The boldness of the theories 
would in that way be less likely to shock people's 
notions. Men of the world often accept in small 
doses what they refuse to swallow as a whole. 

A little while after M. de Sacy encouraged me 
to do the same thing. The old Jansenist was fully 
alive to my heresies. When I read my articles to 
him I noticed his smile at every respectful or cajoling 
sentence. 

There is no doubt that the huge volume whence 
all this came with its heavy style and very indifferent 
literary form would have simply horrified him. It 
\ was plain enough that if I meant to appeal to culti- 

vated people, I should be bound to leave a great 
deal of my baggage at the door. My ideas dawn 
upon me in an involved way, they only become clear 
after a labour similar to that of a gardener who 
trims a tree, lops away its dead branches and trains 
it against the wall. 

In that way I retailed the huge volume which 
thanks to sound advice and friendly counsel had 
been consigned to the bottom of one of my drawers. 



viii Preface. 

The Coup d'Etat which happened shortly after- 
wards had the effect of binding me more firmly 
to the Revue Deux Mondes and the Journal cles 
Debats, in my disgust at the people who on the 2nd 
December greeted the signs of grief of the honest 
citizen with ironical smiles. I was engrossed with 
special studies, travel, my" Origins of Christianity" 
left me no time to think of anything else for twenty- 
five years. I made up my mind that the old MSS. 
should be published after my death, that it would 
then afford pleasure to a select section of enlightened 
minds, that it might succeed perhaps in fixing on 
me once more that attention of the world of which 
the dead stand in so much need in the unequal com- 
petition the living thrust upon them in that respect. 

My life having been prolonged beyond my expec- 
tations I lately made up my mind to be my own 
publisher. I flattered myself that perhaps some 
people would read these ancient, honest pages not 
without profit to themselves and that the rising 
generation especially, which seems to be somewhat 
uncertain about its road, would be pleased to find 
out how a young man, very frank and very sincere 
thought forty years ago, face to face with himself 
only. Young people like the work of young people. 

In my writings intended for men and women of 
the world I have been compelled to make many 
sacrifices. In the following pages which have 
undergone no process of boiling down the reader will 
meet with the young, conscientious Breton lad who 
one day ran away frightened from Saint- Sulpice 
because he fancied that part of what his masters had 
told him was perhaps not strictly true. A day may 
come when the critics will maintain that the Revue 



Preface. ix 

des Deux Mondes and the Journal des Dehats spoilt 
me insomuch that they taught me to write, that is, 
constantly to condense and prune my ideas. That 
day they may perhaps like these pages for which I 
only claim one merit, that of showing in his natural 
and as yet uncorrupted state and suffering from 
violent inflammation of the brain a young man living 
solely with his own thoughts and believing frantically 
in the truth. 

In fact, the blemishes of this first work are 
enormous, and if I had the slightest literary pride, I 
should have suppressed it altogether. The way 
I introduced my ideas lacks the commonest skill. 
It is a dinner in which the primary materials are 
good but which has been cooked and served up any- 
how, the parings of the various ingredients not even, 
having been removed. I was too anxious not to, lose 
anything. Lest I should not be understood I insisted 
too much, in order to drive home the nail I fancied 
myself bound to knock" with all my might. The art 
of composing implying the cutting away of the 
tangled growths that might obstruct the light in " the 
forest of thought" was unknown to me, No one is 
brief at his first start. 

The clearness and tact exacted by the French 
which, I am bound to confess, compel one to say 
only part of what one thinks and are damaging to 
depth of thought seemed to me so much tyranny. 
The French only care to express that which is clear, 
as it happens the most important truths, those that 
relate to the transformations of life are not clear ; one 
only perceives them in a kind of half-light. That is 
why, after having been the first to perceive the truth 
of what is called Darwinism nowadays, France has 



x Preface. 

been the last to rally to it. They saw it well enough, 
but it was out of the beaten track of the language, it 
did not fit the mould of well-constructed phrases. In 
that way France passed by the side of precious truths 
not without seeing them, but simply flinging them 
among the waste paper as useless or impossible to 
express. At the start I wanted to say everything 
and I often said it badly. At the risk of tumbling into 
the realm of the unintelligible I endeavoured, to fix 
the fleeting essence, hitherto considered, as not 
worthy of consideration. 

However much and. wisely or the reverse I may 
have modified my habits of style as regards exposition 
as little have I changed, my fundamental ideas from 
the moment I began to think for myself. My religion 
is now as ever the progress of reason, in other words 
the progress of science. But in looking over these 
pages of my youth, I often found a certain confusion 
which distorted certain deductions. Intensive cul- 
ture constantly adding to the sum total of human 
knowledge is not the same thing as extensive culture 
disseminating that knowledge more and more for the 
welfare of the countless human beings in existence. 
The sheet of water in expanding continues to lose in 
depth. Towards 1700 Newton had acquired views on 
the system by which the earth was governed infinitely 
superior to everything that had been thought out 
before him without his matchless discoveries having in 
the least affected the education of the people. On the 
other hand one might reasonably conceive a state of 
exceedingly perfect elementary education without the 
higher sciences deriving much benefit therefrom. 
Our real motive for advocating elementary education 
is that a nation without education is fanatical and 



Preface. xi 

that fanatical nations are dangerous to -science, 
governments being in the habit of shackling freedom 
of thought in the names of popular beliefs and the 
so-called sanctity of family institutions. 

Hence, the idea of a state of civilization with 
a levelling mission, such as it is presented in a few 
pages of this book is nothing more than a dream. 
A school in which the pupils would make the laws 
would be a sorry school indeed. Enlightenment, 
morality, art will always be represented among 
mankind by a magistracy, by a minority, preserving 
the traditions of the true, the good and the beautiful. 
But we must be on our guard against this magis- 
tracy disposing of the public forces and appealing 
to superstition and imposture in order to maintain 
its power. 

There were also a great many illusions in my 
acceptance of the socialistic ideas of 1848 in bygone 
days. While still believing that science alone is 
capable of improving the unhappy lot of man here 
below, I have ceased to believe in the solution of the 
problem being as near as I believed it to be then. 
Inequality is one of nature's written laws, it is the 
consequence of liberty and the liberty of the indi- 
vidual is a necessary postulate of human progress. 
This progress implies a great sacrifice of individual 
happiness. The actual condition of humanity, 
for instance, demands the maintenance of separate 
nations which are establishments exceedingly heavy 
to bear. A condition which would afford the 
greatest possible happiness to individuals would 
probably, from the point of view of the ennobling 
pursuits of mankind, be a condition of profound 
abasement. 



xii Preface. 

The main error with which these old pages teem 
is an exaggerated optimism which fails or is deter- 
mined not to see that evil still exists and that we 
have to pay dearly, that is in privileges, the power 
that protects us against this evil. The reader will 
also notice an old leaven of Catholicism ; the idea 
that we shall behold once more the age of belief when 
a compulsory and universal religion will prevail as it 
prevailed in the first half of the Middle Ages. 
Heaven preserve us from being saved in that fashion. 
Uniformity of belief, that is, fanaticism, can only 
come back in this world of ours in company with the 
ignorance and credulity of bygone centuries. I would 
by far have an immoral people than a fanatical 
people for immoral masses are by no means difficult 
to deal with while fanatical masses reduce the world 
to a state of imbecility, and a world condemned to 
a state of imbecility has no longer any claim on my 
interest; I would as lief see it perish. Let us 
suppose every orange tree to be smitten with a 
disease impossible of cure except on the condition 
of its no longer producing oranges. It would be so 
much time wasted seeing that the orange tree which 
does not produce oranges is worthless. 

In order not to make this publication utterly 
devoid of all interest I had to submit to one con- 
dition, namely ; to reproduce my essay in its simple, 
matted, often abrupt form. I might just as well have 
written a new book as have attempted to correct 
numberless inaccuracies, to modify a great number 
of thoughts which at present appear to me either 
expressed in an exaggerated manner or which are no 
longer just, and moreover the framework of my old 
essay is by no means such as I would choose to- 



Preface. xiii 

day.* Hence, I confined myself to the striking out 
of mistakes resulting from carelessness, those big 
blunders which one only notices in proof and which 
would assuredly have been corrected if I had pub- 
lished the book in times gone by. I have left the 
notes as a whole at the end of the volume. Many a 
passage will provoke a smile on the reader's part. It 
will make no difference to me as long as he, the 
reader, acknowledges that these pages contain the 
expression of great intellectual rectitude and perfect 
sincerity. 

A great difficulty resulting from my decision of 
printing my purana as it stands was the resemblance 
between certain pages of the present work and many 
of works published before, a resemblance which 
cannot fail to strike the reader. Besides the fragment 
published in La Liberie de Penser which has been 
reproduced in my " Contemporary Essays," there are 
many other passages that have found their way 
either as regards the mere idea or as regards both the 
idea and its expression in several of my writings, 
notably in those belonging to my first period. I tried 
at first to excise this dualism, but it soon became 
patent to me that the book would not stand on its 
legs at all in that way. The parts that had been re- 
peated were the most important, the whole structure, 
like a wall from which the most necessary stones 
have been abstracted, was toppling over. The 
simplest way out of the difficulty, I thought, was to 
appeal to the indulgence of the reader. Those who 

* I have left all the passages in which I presented German 
culture as being synonymous with aspiration towards the ideal- 
istic. They were true when I penned them. It is not I who 
have changed. 



xiv Preface. 

do roe the honour of reading my writings in the order 
they were written will, I trust, pardon those repeti- 
tions, if the present volume should succeed in show- 
ing them my ideas arranged and combined in a way 
that may present something novel and interesting 
to them. 

In attempting to strike a balance between what 
has remained merely so much vision and what has 
been realized in those dreams of half a century ago 
I must confess to a feeling of appreciable moral 
satisfaction. After all, I was right. Excepting a 
few disappointments progress has travelled on the 
lines laid down in my imagination. At that period 
I did not see sufficiently clearly what man had left 
behind in the purely animal kingdom, I had not a 
sufficiently clear perception of the inequality of races 
but I had a just conception of what I may call the 
origin of life. 

I perceived well enough that everything is accom- 
plished in humanity and nature, that creation has no 
part nor parcel in the series of effects and causes. 
Too little of a naturalist to track the paths of life in 
the labyrinth which we see without seeing it, I was 
a determined evolutionist in all that appertains to the 
productions of humanity, language, literature, social 
forms, writings. I began to perceive that the mor- 
phological draughtboard of the vegetal and animal 
species was indeed the indication of a genesis ; that 
everything is born in accordance with a design of 
which we can only see the obscure canvas. The 
aim of science is an immense development of which 
the cosmological sciences give us the first perceptible 
links, of which history proper shows us the last ex- 
pansions. Like Hegel I made the mistake of being 



Preface. xv 

too confident in attributing to mankind a central 
part in the universe. 

The whole of human development may be of no 
more consequence than the moss or lichen with 
which every moist surface is covered. To us, though, 
the history of man stands first and foremost, seeing 
that humanity alone creates the conscience of the 
universe. A plant's only worth lies in its producing 
flowers, fruit, aroma, nourishing tubercules, which 
are of no account as a mass, if they are compared to 
the mass of the plant itself, but which possess the 
character of finality in a much greater degree than 
the leaves, branches and trunk. 

Historical science and its auxiliaries, philological 
sciences, have made immense conquests since I took 
to them so fondly forty years ago. But the end can 
already be foreseen. In another century mankind 
will pretty well know everything that can be known 
about its past ; and then it will be time to stop, 
because the tendency of these studies is to begin 
their own destruction the moment they have reached 
comparative perfection. The danger of a revival of 
superstition will alone keep up the habit of critical 
disquisition at first hand. 

The history of religion has been cleared up in its 
most important branches. It has become patent, not 
from a priori arguments, but from the very discussion 
of evidence that in the centuries open to men's 
researches there has been neither revelation nor 
supernatural fact. The onward course of civilization 
has been made manifest in its general laws. The 
inferiority of certain races to others is proved. The 
claims of each human family to a more or less 
honourable mention in the history of progress are 
pretty well decided. 



xvi Preface. 

With regard to. the political and social sciences, 
one may safely say that progress during the last 
forty years has been slow. The old political economy 
whose pretensions were so noisily shouted forth in 
1848, has been wrecked. Socialism which has been 
taken, up again by the Germans so earnestly and 
with so much study continues to trouble the world 
without arriving at a clear solution. Prince Bismarck 
who was to have stopped its progress in five years by 
means of repressive legislation has evidently been 
mistaken, at any rate this time. What appears very 
probable indeed is that there will be no end of 
socialism. But assuredly the socialism that will gain 
the victory will be different from the Utopism of 
1848. A keen observer might have seen in the year 
300 of our era that Christianity will not end; but 
ought also to have seen that the world will not end, 
that the latter will adapt the former to its needs and 
out of a belief destructive of all society, will make 
a sedative, a political machine, conservative to a 
degree. 

In politics the situation is by no means more 
clear. The national principle has since 1848 been 
developed to an extraordinary extent. Representa- 
tive government is established nearly everywhere. 

But evident signs of the fatigue caused by national 
burdens are looming on the horizon. Patriotism is 
becoming local, national enthusiasm decreases. 
Modern nations resemble the heroes borne down by 
their armour, on the tomb of Maximilian at Inns- 
bruck, ricketty bodies with iron masters over them. 
France who was the pioneer on that road will, 
following ordinary laws be the first to react against 
the movement she started. In fifty years the 



Preface. xvii 

national principle will be on the decline. The 
terrible harshness of the proceedings by which the 
ancient monarchial States obtained the sacrifice of 
the individual will have become impossible in free 
States ; scarcely any one nowadays cares to provide 
the materials for those towers of Tamerlane, built up 
with corpses. In fact, it has become too clear that 
the happiness of the individual is not in direct pro- 
portion to the grandeur of the nation to which he 
belongs, and as a rule one generation cares very little 
about the why or wherefore a preceding generation 
has sacrificed its life. 

These variations spring from the uncertainty of 
our ideas with regard to the object to be attained and 
the higher end of humanity. Between the two 
objects held out by political life, the grandeur of 
nations, and welfare of individuals the choice is 
prompted by interest or passion. There is no hint 
afforded to us either as to nature's will or the aim 
of the universe. For us, idealists, there exists but 
one true doctrine, the transcendental doctrine accord- 
ing to which the aim of humanity consists in consti- 
tuting a loftier consciousness of the universe, or as 
we used to say, the highest glory of God ; but [it is 
very clear that this doctrine will afford no basis for a 
practical policy. Such an aim must, on the contrary, 
be carefully dissimulated.^ Men would revolt if they 
knew they were being thus exploited. 

How long will national spirit be able to hold out 
against individual egotism ? Who, in centuries to 
come, will have served humanity most, the patriot, 
the liberal, the reactionary, the savant ? No one 
knows and still it would be a capital thing to know, 
for what is good in one of these hypotheses is bad 



xviii Preface. 

in the other. One works the switches without know- 
ing whither one wants to go. According to the goal 
to he reached France is doing either detestable or 
excellent work. Other nations are more enlightened. 
Politics are like a desert in which one marches at 
random towards the north or towards the south ; for 
we must keep on marching. No one knows where 
the good lies in the social order. There is or 
comfort, one is sure to land somewhere. In the kii 
of rifle competition with which humanity is amu^ 
itself the mark hit is supposed to be the marV 
at. In that way the good and true men a 1 
a clear conscience. For the rest, in t±. >m 
state of general doubt, liberty in any case, ^as it? 
value, since it is a means of allowing free play to the" 
secret spring which moves humanity, and carries i$ 
along with or against its will. 

To sum up ; if through the constant labour of the 
nineteenth century the knowledge of facts has con- 
siderably increased, the destiny of mankind has on 
the other hand become more obscure than ever. The 
serious thing is that we fail to perceive a means of 
providing humanity in the future with a catechism 
that will be acceptable henceforth, except on the 
condition of returning to a state of credulity. Hence, 
it is possible that the ruin of idealistic beliefs may 
be fated to follow hard upon the ruin of supernatural 
beliefs and that the real abasement of the morality 
of humanity will date from the day it has seen the 
reality of things. Chimeras have succeeded in 
obtaining from the good gorilla an astonishing moral 
effort ; do away with the chimeras and part of the 
factitious energy they aroused will disappear. Even 
glory, as a motive-power implies in some respects 

i 



Preface. xix 

immortality, the fruit of it generally coming only 
after death. Suppress the alcohol on which the 
workman has hitherto relied for his strength, hut 
you must not ask him for the same amount of 
work. 

Candidly speaking, I fail to see how, without the 
ancient dreams, the foundations of a happy and noble 
. fe are to he relaid. The hypothesis that the true 
r ige would be he who, barring to himself all distant 
'%izons, would confine himself to the perspective 
"^ vulgar gratification, this perspective, I say, 
has "%ely repugnant to us. However, man's 

-ju. - ^ J-fand noble aims have rested before now on 
tfalse" foundations. The wisest thing to do, then, is 
' to go on enjoying the supreme gifts vouchsafed to 
.is, life and the faculty of seeing the reality. Science 
will always remain the gratification of the noblest 
craving of our nature ; curiosity ; it will always 
supply man with the sole means of improving his lot. 
It protects him against error, though it may not 
reveal the truth to him, but there is an advantage 
in being certain of not being duped. Man fashioned 
according to this discipline is on the whole a better 
man than the instinctive man of the ages of faith. 
He is not subject to the errors to which the un- 
cultured fatally yield, he is more enlightened, he 
commits fewer crimes, he is less sublime, but he is 
also less ridiculous. All this, it will be said, is not 
worth the heaven science takes away from us. First 
of all, who knows whether it does take it away ; 
secondly people are none the poorer for being robbed 
of bogus shares and false banknotes. A little true 
science is better than a great deal of bad science. 
One is less liable to error by confessing one's ignor- 



xx Preface. 

ance than by fancying that one knows a great many 
things one knows not. 

Consequently I was right at the outset of my 
intellectual career firmly to believe in science and to 
make it the object of my life. If I had to begin 
again I should do exactly as I have done, and during 
the little time that remains to me I shall go on as I 
began. 

Immortality means to labour at a lasting work. 
According to the primitive Christian idea, the true 
one, only those shall rise again who have contributed 
to the divine work ; furthering God's kingdom on 
earth. The punishment of the wicked and frivolous 
will be utter annihilation. Here a formidable objec- 
tion starts up against us. Can science be more ever- 
lasting than humanity whose end is written down 
from the very fact of its having had a beginning ? 
It matters not ; human reason has not been engaged 
consecutively for more than a hundred years on the 
problem of matters mundane. It has already made 
some wonderful discoveries that have increased man's 
power a hundred, nay a thousandfold. What then 
will it be a hundred thousand years hence ? And 
pray remember that no truth is ever lost, that no 
error ever strikes root. All this makes us feel secure. 
We are really afraid of nothing except of the falling- 
in of the sky, and even if the sky came crashing 
down we should still go to sleep quietly with the 
thought, " The Being of whom we were the transitory 
blossom has always been, always will be." 



Preface. xxi 

To Monsieur Eugene Burnoiif, Member of the Academy, 
Professor at the College de France, 

Monsieuk, 

During the last twelvemonth my thoughts 
have frequently gone back to that memorable 25th 
February 1848, when after having scaled the barri- 
cades to get to the College de France we found our 
modest room transformed into a guardroom, to which 
we were welcomed like so many suspected individuals. 
That day I asked myself more seriously than ever 
whether a man could do better than devote every 
moment of his life to study and to thought, and after 
having consulted my conscience and strengthened 
my faith in human intellect, I resolutely answered ; 
" No." If science were nothing more than an agree- 
able pastime, a kind of diversion for the idle, a mere 
costly ornament, a hobby for the amateur, in short 
the least vaig of all vanities, there might be times 
when the savant would have occasion to say with 
the poet ; 

" Shame to him who sings, the while Eome burns." 

But if science be a serious matter, if the destinies 
of mankind and the perfection of the individual be 
bound up with it, if it be a religion, it has like 
matters of religion its value every day, every moment 
of our lives. To devote to study and intellectual 
culture only our moments of peace and leisure is an 
insult to the human intellect, it is tacitly supposing 
that there is something more important than the 
pursuit of truth. If such were indeed the case, if 
science were only a matter of second rate importance 
how could the man who has resolved to devote his 



xxii Preface. 

life to the attainment of the perfect, who wishes to 
be able to say at his last moments ; " I have accom- 
plished my task," how could that man devote so 
much as a single hour to it, when he knows that 
higher duties claim him ? 

That revolutions and the dread of the future 
offer a temptation to science ignorant of its aim, 
to science that has never endeavoured to ascertain 
its own value and true significance, is easily under- 
stood. As for serious and philosophical science 
which responds to a want of human nature, no social 
upheavals will succeed in affecting it, they may, on 
the contrary, be of use to it, by causing it to take 
itself to task, to verify its titles, to be no longer 
satisfied with the mere perfunctory judgment on 
which it was wont to base itself formerly. 

These are the reflections, Monsieur, I have made 
for myself, while remaining isolated and calm amidst 
the universally prevailing agitation; and which I have 
embodied in these pages. Thanks to the sentiments 
with which they have inspired me, I have gone 
through many a sad day without cursing any one, full 
of trust in the natural rectitude of human reason and 
its necessary tendency towards a more enlightened, 
consequently a more moral and happier state. I 
hesitated a good deal before making up my mind to 
disclose in this way the thoughts of my youth, the 
critic of which I may become perhaps when older, 
and which no doubt will have but scant value to 
those "further advanced on the road of science. Still, 
I fancied that some young people enamoured of the 
beautiful and true might derive comfort and strength 
from this confidence of mine amidst the struggles 
which every distinguished mind is bound to wage at a 



Preface. xxiii 

certain age in order to find out and to shape for him- 
self the ideal of his life. I also wanted, at the outset 
of my scientific career to proclaim my deeply rooted 
belief in human reason and modern intelligence, 
at a moment when so many faint-hearted brethren 
drop tired and spent into the arms of those who 
profess to regret ignorance while they anathematize 
criticism. I would fain warn those who take advan- 
tage of our weakness, who discount beforehand our 
misfortunes, who found their hopes on the intellectual 
fatigue and depression resulting from great suffering, 
I would fain warn those against thinking that the 
generation just entering upon "the life of thought" 
is theirs. We shall be able to uphold the tradition of 
the modern spirit both against those who wish to 
bring back the past and against who those aim at 
substituting for our living multiple civilization a kind 
of architectural and petrified condition of society like 
that in which the pyramids were built. 

It is not a mere commonplace sentiment which 
prompts the dedication of this essay to you. It was 
really thought out before you. Whenever, in my 
inward hesitations, my scientific ideal seemed to 
become obscured the thought of you was sufficient 
to dispel the clouds, you were the answer to all my 
doubts. It is your image I have had constantly 
before me when trying to express the lofty ideal 
which conceives life not as a part to be played or 
as an intrigue to be accomplished successfully, but as 
something earnest and true. In listening to your 
lectures on the most beautiful of languages and 
literatures of the primitive world I realized what 
until then had been only a dream ; science becom- 
ing philosophy and the highest results springing from 
the most scrupulous analysis of details. 



xxiv Preface. 

It is to this living proof that I would invite all those 
whom I may not be able to convince of my favourite 
thesis ; that the science of the human intellect 
must be above all the history of the human intellect ; 
and this history only becomes possible by the patient 
and philological study of the works it has produced 
at its different epochs. 

Believe me, Monsieur, 
Your respectful and admiring pupil, 

EENEST EENAN. 

Paris, March, 1849. 



/ 

THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

"But one thing is needful." I grant in its widest 
philosophical bearing this precept of the Great 
Teacher of morality. I look upon it as the principle 
of every life striving to be noble, as the expressive 
formula — though dangerous in its briefness — of 
human nature from the point of view of morality 
and duty. The first step of him who aspires to 
wisdom, as respectable antiquity expressed it, is to 
divide his life into two parts ; the first, commonplace 
and having nothing sacred in it, consisting of wants 
and indulgences of an inferior order (material exist- 
ence, pleasure, wealth, etc.) ; the other, which may 
be termed the ideal one, heavenly, divine, disin- 
terested, taking as its aim the purer forms of truth, 
beauty, moral goodness. In other words, to employ 
the most comprehensive expression hallowed by 
reverence in the past, God Himself; God Himself, 
ever felt, ever perceived, ever touched in His thousand 
forms by the intelligent perception of all that is true, 
by the love of all that is beautiful. This is the great 
opposition of the body and the soul recognized by all 
religions, by all lofty philosophical systems ; an 
opposition superficial indeed if it be meant to denote 
a dual substance in the human being, but perfectly 
true, if judiciously enlarging the sense of these two 



Tlie Future of Science. 



words and applying them to two orders of phenomena, 
we take them as signifying the two roads of life open 
to man. To admit the distinction between these 
two roads, is tantamount to admitting that the" 
higher life, the ideal one is everything, and thaf 
the lower, the life spent in pursuit of pleasure at 
interest is nothing, that the latter disappears befo' 3 
the former as the finite before the infinite, and tit- 
if practical wisdom commands us to think of it, it 
only in view and as a condition of the first-named. 

I am aware that, by leading off with b 
ponderous truths I have virtually written m T 
down a slow-coach. But I am utterly w^nou. 
shame on this point. For many years p 1 eady I 
have elected to take my stand among 1... J simple 
and dull-witted who take things conscientiously. 
I am sufficiently weak-minded to look upon that 
pretence at delicacy which refuses to take life as a 
serious and sacred business as unbecoming, and very 
easy to imitate ; and if there were no alternative I 
should prefer the most narrow dogmatism to this 
flippancy which one honours too much by calling it 
scepticism, the more appropriate names for it being 
sheer folly and trash. If it were true that human 
life is nothing more than a profitless succession of 
vulgar facts without any higher worth than that 
derived from the senses, the first serious reflection 
would lead man to make away with himself; there 
would be no choice between intoxication, a tyrannical 
occupation of one's every moment and suicide. To 
live the intellectual life, to inhale the infinite through 
every pore, to endeavour to realize the beautiful, to 
attain the perfect, each according to his, ability, that 
is the only thing needful ; all the rest is vanity and 
vexation of spirit. 

Christian asceticism in proclaiming this grand 
simplification of life understood the one thing 
needful in so narrow a spirit that its principle 
became in the course of time a galling yoke to the 
human intellect. Not only did it wholly neglect 



The Future of Science. 



the true and the beautiful (philosophy, science, 

poetry being mere "vanities"), but in clinging 

exclusively to the good, it conceived it in the 

meanest spirit. The good according to it meant the 

•ealization of the will of a superior being, a kind of 

■objection humiliating to human dignity ; because 

3 ae realization of moral good no more means obedi- 

ice to imposed laws than the realization of the 

eautiful in a work of art means the carrying out of 

j srtain rules. Consequently human nature was 

jigM in its most noble members. In matters 

ellectual, which are all equally holy, a distinction 

■was made between the sacred and the profane. The 

prof at* "V thanks to the instincts of nature which 

happen *$ to be stronger than the principles of an 

artificial asceticism, was not altogether banished ; 

though " vanity," it was tolerated ; sometimes 

Christian asceticism went even so far as to call it the 

least vain of vanities, but if it had been consistent 

the profane would have been pitilessly proscribed; 

it was considered a mere weakness of which the 

ascetically perfect would have none. It was a fatal 

distinction which poisoned the existence of many free 

and beautiful natures born to relish the ideal in all 

its infinity and whose lives were spent in sadness, 

crushed in the grip of the fatal vice. Oh, the 

struggles it has cost me ! The first philosophical 

victory of my youth was to proclaim from the depth 

of my conscience that, "Everything appertaining to 

the soul is sacred." 

Hence, it is no narrow limit which I am laying 
down for human nature in suggesting to its activity 
one thing only as being worthy of it, for this sole 
thing contains the infinite, It only excludes the 
commonplace, which has no value except in so far 
as it is felt and at the moment it is felt ; and this 
inferior sphere is far more circumscribed than is 
generally believed. There are very few things in 
human life altogether profane. Our moral and 
intellectual progress will disclose new standpoints 



The Future of Science. 



that will invest acts in appearance most homely with 
an ideal value. Has not Christianity, aided by the 
instincts of the Celtic and Germanic races, raised to 
the dignity of an aesthetic and moral sentiment a 
fact viewed by the whole of antiquity — with the 
exception of Plato perhaps — as a mere gratification 
of the senses ? Has not the act of nutrition, the 
most material of life, received a most admirable mystic 
significance at the hands of the first Christians ? 
Manual labour which nowadays is scarcely anything 
else but an irksome and brutalizing penalty to those 
condemned to it, was not such to the craftsmen of 
the Middle Ages who built cathedrals singing as 
they built. Who knows but what one day the sight 
of the general welfare of humanity for whom the 
work is constructed may soften and sanctify the sweat 
on the workman's brow ? For from the point of view 
of humanity the most lowly works have an ideal 
worth seeing that they are the means or at any rate 
the implied condition of mental conquest. The 
sanctifying of the material lower life by outward 
ceremonies and practices is a trait common to all 
religions. The progress of rationalism at once — 
and without much merit — proclaimed these cere- 
monies so many acts of pure superstition. What 
has been the result? Baulked in its attempts 
at idealizing, life has become something profane, 
vulgar, prosaic, so much so that for certain acts in 
which the need of religious significance was more 
deeply felt, such as for instance in birth, marriage, 
and death, the world has preserved the ancient 
ceremonies, though it may no longer have faith in 
their efficacy. I am inclined to think that eventual 
progress will reconcile those two tendencies by sub- 
stituting moral sentiment in all its purity for sacra- 
mental acts, whose only value lies in their signification, 
and which viewed in their material execution are 
utterly inefficacious. 

Hence, everything connected with the higher life 
of man, the life by which he is distinguished from 



The Future of Science. 



the animal, is sacred arid deserving of the passionate 
devotion of high-minded natures. A beautiful sen- 
timent is worth a beautiful thought ; a beautiful 
thought is worth a beautiful action. A system of 
philosophy is worth a poem, a poem is worth a 
scientific discovery ; a life spent in the pursuit of 
science is as good as a life spent in the practice 
of virtue. The perfect man will be he who is a poet, 
a philosopher, a savant, and a virtuous man in one 
and that nob at intervals (periodically) and at distinct 
moments — for in that case he would only be such in 
a restricted sense — but by an intimate simultaneous 
interpenetration at every moment of his life, who will 
be a poet at the same time that he is a philosopher, 
a philosopher at the same time that he is a savant, in 
whom, in one word, all the elements of humanity will 
be blended in a superior harmony, as in collective 
humanity itself. The weakness of our age of analysis 
does not allow of- such an. elevated degree of unity; 
life has become a trade, a profession, a man is com- 
pelled to advertise his title as a poet, artist or savant, 
create for himself a little world of his own in which 
he lives apart without understanding anything be- 
yond, nay, often denying that anything beyond 
exists. That this is a necessity of the actual con- 
dition of the human intellect, it is impossible to 
deny ; nevertheless we are bound to admit that such 
a system of life, though warranted by the necessity 
of it, is contrary to human dignity and the per- 
fection of the individual. Tested as man a Newton, 
a Cuvier, a Heyne sounds less beautiful than an 
antique sage, a Solon or a Pythagoras for instance. 
The final aim of man is not to know, to feel, to 
imagine, but to be perfect, that is, to be man in 
every acceptation of the word ; to represent in an 
individual type a condensed picture of complete 
humanity, and to show blended in one powerful unit 
all the aspects of life which humanity has sketched 
at different epochs and places. Man too frequently 
fancies that morality and morality alone constitutes 



The Future of Science. 



perfection, that the pursuit of the true and the 
beautiful is nothing more than a mere enjoyment, 
that the upright man is the perfect man, such, for 
instance, as the Moravian brother. The model of 
perfection is afforded to us by humanity itself, the 
most perfect life is that which best represents the 
whole of humanity. And cultured humanity is not 
only moral, it is also learned, inquiring, poetical, 
impassioned. 

To think that the individual man may one day 
embrace the whole field of intellectual culture would 
no doubt be carrying one's hopes for the future of 
humanity beyond the limits observed by the boldest 
Utopian. But there are in the various branches 
of art and science two totally distinct elements 
which though equally necessary to the production 
of work scientific or artistic, contribute in a very un- 
equal measure to the perfection of the individual; 
there is on one side the technical process, the prac- 
tical skill, indispensable to the discovery of the true, 
the realization of*the beautiful; on the other the 
mind that creates and animates, the soul that breathes 
life into the work of art, the great law that lends 
significance and value to such and such a scientific 
discovery. It will always be impossible for the same 
man to handle with the same skill the painter's 
brush, the musician's instrument, the chemist's ap- 
paratus. In all this there is a special education and 
a practical skill which, to become spontaneous habit 
calling for no previous consideration demands a life's 
practice. But that which may become possible in a 
more advanced form of intellectual culture is the 
sentiment that endows the composition of the poet 
or artist with life, the penetration of the philosopher 
or the savant, the moral sense of a lofty nature being 
united in order to make but one soul, sympathetic 
with everything that is good, true and beautiful, to 
constitute a moral type of humanity in the aggre- 
gate, an ideai which without being realized in this 
man or that may be to the future generations what 



Tlie Future of Science. 



Christ has been to the past eighteen centuries, 
namely — a Christ who would no longer represent 
only the moral side in its highest power, but further- 
more the aesthetic and scientific side of humanity. 

For after all, all these categories of pure forms 
perceptible to the intellect constitute but the facets 
of a same unity. Divergence only begins at a lower 
level. There is a great central focus in which 
poetry, science and morality are identical, in which 
to know, to admire, and to love are one and the 
same thing, in which all opposing sentiments drop 
away, in which human nature recognizes the high 
harmony of all its faculties and that grand act 
of adoration which sums up the tendency of its 
whole being towards the everlasting infinite, in the 
identity of its aim. The saint is he who devotes his 
life to this grand ideal and votes all the rest useless. 

Pascal has shown the necessarily pernicious circle 
of the positive life in a masterly way. Man labours 
to obtain rest and then rest becomes unbearable. He 
does not enjoy life, but only expects to enjoy it. The 
fact is that worldly people have no well defined 
system of life — at any rate, as far as I can see. 
They cannot exactly say what is essential, what is 
accessory, they are not sure what is the end and 
what the means. Wealth cannot be the final aim 
seeing that it has no value except in the enjoyments 
it procures. Nevertheless, we see the most serious 
faculties frittered away in the acquisition of wealth 
and pleasure is looked upon as a relaxation only for 
lost moments and useless years. The philosopher 
and the religious man only can take their fill of rest 
at any moment, seize upon and profit by the fleeting 
hour without postponing anything to the future. 

A man said once to a philosopher of antiquity that 
he did not think he was born to be a philosopher. 
"You poor, unfortunate mortal," replied the sage; 
" for what then do you think you were born ? " No 
doubt if philosophy were a specialty, a profession 
like any other, if to philosophize meant to study 



8 The Future of Science. 

or to seek the solution of a certain number of more 
or less important questions, then the reply of the 
sage would be singularly nonsensical. And yet if 
we understand philosophy in its proper sense, the 
man who is not a philosopher, that is, who has not 
succeeded in grasping the loftier meaning of life 
is indeed a wretched being. A great many people 
equally willingly give up the title of poet. If to be 
a poet meant the skilful use of the mechanism of 
lauguage they would be excusable. But if we under- 
stand by poetry the soul's faculty of being touched in 
a certain way, of yielding a response of a particular 
and undefinable nature when face to face with the 
beauty of things, he who is not a poet is not a man, 
and to give up the title is tantamount to abdicating 
voluntarily the dignity of his nature. 

If needs were illustrious examples could be found 
to prove that this lofty harmony of the powers of 
human nature is not an idle fancy. The lives of men 
of genius nearly always present the delightful sight 
of vast intellectual capacity allied to very lofty 
poetical sentiment and charming good nature, to a 
degree such as to make in most cases their lives in 
their serene and sweet tranquillity their most beautiful 
work of all and an essential part of their complete 
works. Really and truly the words poetry, philo- 
sophy, art, science do not signify so much diverse 
objects offered to the intellectual activity of man as 
different ways of looking at the same object which 
is simply existence itself in all its manifestations. 
That is why there is no great philosopher who is not 
at the same time a poet ; the great artist is often 
much more of a philosopher than those who bear the 
name. All these are merely so many different forms, 
which like those of literature are capable of express- 
ing everything. Beranger found means to say every- 
thing in the guise of songs, another haply in the 
guise of novels, a third in the guise of history. All 
genius is universal with regard to the object of its 
efforts and the small minds are just as wrong in trying 



The Future of Science. 9 

to establish the exclusive pre-eminence of their art as 
the great men are right in maintaining that their art 
is the whole of man, seeing that it enables them, in 
fact to express that which cannot be divided ; namely 
— the soul, God. 

Nevertheless one is bound to admit that the secret 
to blend those diverse elements is as yet, not found. 
In the actual condition of human intelligence a nature 
too richly endowed suffers constant martyrdom. The 
man born with one eminent faculty which absorbs 
all the others is far happier than the one who is 
always discovering within himself new wants which 
he cannot satisfy. He would need one life to acquire 
knowledge, another to feel and to love, a third to 
act, or to speak correctly he would like to lead 
abreast a series of parallel existences, while still 
possessing in one superior unity the simultaneous 
consciousness of each of these. Limited by time and 
extraneous necessities, his c; ncentrated activity 
burns itself out inwardly. He requires so much time 
to live for himself that he finds none to live for the 
outer world. He docs not wish to lose an atom of 
this all-devouring, multiple existence which escapes 
him and which he himself devours hurriedly and 
greedily. He rolls from one world on to another 
or rather worlds badly harmonized jostle one another 
in his breast. He envies in turns — for ho is capable 
of understanding in turns— the simple soul that lives 
by love and faith, the virile nature that takes lifelike 
a muscular athlete, the critical and penetrating 
intellect which enjoys the handling of its exact and 
certain instrument at leisure. Then, when he finds 
out the impossibility of realizing this multiple ideal, 
when he sees how short, how fatally incomplete, how 
necessarily divided is life, when he reflects that whole 
sides of his rich and fruitful nature will never emerge 
from semi-obscurity a reaction sets in full of un- 
paralleled bitterness. He anathematizes this super- 
abundance of life which only leads to his wearing him- 
self out without result, or if he throws his energy on 



10 The Future of Science. 

some extraneous work, he still suffers in being unable 
to throw more than a part of himself into it. No 
sooner has he realized one side of life than a thousand 
others just as beautiful flash upon, deceive and lead 
him on in their turn until the day comes when he is 
bound to give up and when casting a glance behind 
he can say at last with some comfort to himself; " I 
have lived a great deal." It is the first time he has 
found his reward. 



The Future of Science. 1 ] 



CHAPTER II. 

To "know is the keyword of the creed of natural 
religion ; for to know is the first condition of the 
commerce of mankind with the things that are, of 
the penetrating stud}^ of the universe, which is the 
intellectual life of the individual; to know is self- 
initiation to God. By ignorance man is as it were 
sequestrated from nature, shut up within himself, and 
reduced to make himself a fanciful non-ego on the 
model of his personality. Hence arises the strange 
world in which infancy lives, in which primitive 
man lived. Man is only capable of communing with 
things by knowledge and love ; without science he 
only loves so many chimeras; Science only can 
supply the foundation of reality necessary to life. If 
like Leibnitz we conceive the individual soul as a 
mirror in which the universe is reflected, it is by 
science that it will be able to reflect a smaller or 
greater portion of what is, and travel towards its 
final aim ; namely, towards its perfect harmony 
with the universality of things. 

To know is of all acts of life the least profane, for 
it is the most disinterested, the most independent 
of gratifications, the most objective, to employ the 
language of the schools. It is a waste of time to 
prove its sanctity, for those only for whom there 
is nothing sacred would dream of denying it. Those 
who go no further than the mere facts of human 
nature without venturing upon a qualification on the 
value of things, even those will not deny that science 



12 The Future of Science. 

at any rate is the first and foremost necessity of man- 
kind. Man face to face with things is necessarily 
impelled to seek their secret. The problem suggests 
itself, and' that by virtue of man's faculty of pene- 
trating beyond the phenomenon he perceives. It is 
first of all nature itself which whets this craving to 
know, and he attacks the latter with the impatience 
bred of a naive presumption, which fancies itself able 
to draw up a system of the universe at the first 
attempt and in a few pages. Then his curiosity is 
tempted by the wish to know all about himself, and 
much later on by the desire to solve the problem of 
his species, of humanity at large, of its history. 
Then comes the final problem, the great cause, the 
supreme law. The problem gets varied, grows larger 
and larger, according to the horizons appertaining to 
each age, but it never ceases suggesting itself; face 
to face with the unknown man always experiences a 
dual sentiment ; a reverence for the mysterious, a 
noble recklessness that prompts him to rend the veil 
in order to know what is beyond it. 

To remain indifferent face to face with the uni- 
verse is utterly impossible to man. As soon as he 
begins to think, he begins to seek, he puts problems 
to himself and solves them ; he must needs have 
a system on the world, on himself, on the primary 
cause, on his origin, on his end. He lacks the 
necessary data to answer the questions he puts to 
himself, but no matter. He supplies them himself. 
Hence, primitive religions, improvised solutions of 
a problem that required long centuries of research, 
but to which an immediate answer was necessary. 
The scientific method is capable of resigning itself 
to no-knowledge, or it does at any rate submit to 
delay ; primitive science wanted there and then to 
grasp the meaning of things. In fact, to ask man 
to adjourn certain problems, to postpone to future 
centuries the knowledge of what he is, what kind of 
place he occupies in the world, what is the cause 
of the world and of himself, to ask him to do this 



The Future of Science. 13 

is to ask him to achieve the impossible. Even if he 
did get to know the enigma insoluble, one could not 
prevent him from worrying and wearing himself out 
about it. 

I am aware that there is something irreverent, 
something unlawful, something savouring of high 
treason against the divine in this bold act of man 
by which he endeavours to penetrate the mystery of 
things. At any rate that is how all ancient peoples 
looked at it. According to them science was a robbery 
committed to the prejudice of G-od, an act of de- 
fiance and disobedience. In the beautiful myth 
with which the Pentateuch opens, it is the genius 
of evil that prompts man to emerge from his state 
of innocent ignorance in order to become like God 
by the knowledge distinct and antithetic of good and 
evil. The fable of Prometheus has no other meaning 
than that ; the conquests of civilization presented 
as an attempt against, an illicit rape upon, a jealous 
divinity who wished to keep them to himself. 
Hence, the proud character of daring against the 
gods borne by the first inventors, hence, the theme 
developed in so many mythological legends : that 
the wish for a better state is the source of all evil 
in the world. It will be . easily understood that, 
antiquity not having the " key-word " of the enigma, 
progress was, as it were, bound to feel a respectful 
dread in shattering the barriers erected, according 
to it by a superior power, that not daring to rely 
upon the future for a state of happiness, it conceived 
it as having existed in a primitive golden age (1), 
that it should have said, Audax lapeti genus, that 
it called the conquest of the perfect a vetitum nefas. 
Humanity, in those days, had the sentiment of the 
obstacle, not that of victory, but though calling 
itself all the while audacious and daring, it kept 
marching onward and onward. As for us who have 
reached the grand moment of our consciousness, it 
is no longer a question of saying, " Caelum vpsum 
petimus stultiiia ! " and to go on committing sacri- 



14 The Future of Science. 

leges as it were. We must proceed with proudly 
uplifted head and fearlessly towards that which is 
ours and when we do violence to things in order to 
drag their secret from them, feel perfectly convinced 
that we are acting for ourselves, for them and for God. 

Man does not at once become fully conscious of 
his strength and creative power. Among primitive 
peoples, all the marvellous exploits of the human 
intellect are attributed to the Divinity ; the wise 
men believe themselves inspired and thoroughly con- 
vinced of their mysterious relations with higher beings 
and boast of them. Often the supernatural agents 
themselves are credited with the authorship of works 
that seemingly exceed the powers of man. In 
Homer it is Hephsestos who creates all the inge- 
nious mechanisms. The credulous centuries of me- 
dievalism attribute all eminent science or all skill 
above the common level to secret faculties, to com- 
merce with the Evil One. As a rule the non-reflect- 
ing or " little-reflecting " centuries are given to 
substitute theological for psychological explanations. 
It seems natural to believe that grace comes from 
on high ; it is only later on discovered to emanate 
from the inmost conscience. The untutored fancies 
that the dew drops from the sky ; he scarcely believes 
the savant who assures him that it emanates from the 
plants themselves. 

When I wish to picture to myself fact as of the 
progenitor of science in all its primitive simplicity 
and disinterested impulse, I revert with a feeling of 
inexpressible charm to the first rational philosophers 
of Greece. To the psychologist there is a priceless 
ingenuousness and truth in this spontaneous ardour 
of a few men who without traditional precedent 
or official motive but from mere inward impulse 
of their nature take to grappling with the eternal 
problem in its true form. Aristotle is already a deep- 
thinking savant conscious of his process who pro- 
duces science and philosophy as Virgil produces 
verse. Those first thinkers, on the contrary, are 



The Future of Science. 15 

moved by their spontaneous curiosity in a totally 
different manner. The object is before them, whet- 
ting their appetite ; they attack it like the child 
who, growing impatient when confronted with a 
complicated piece of machinery, tries it in every way 
in order to get at its secret, and does not stop until 
he has found the to him sufficiently satisfactory 
explanation. This primitive science is nothing more 
than the constantly repeated " Why?" of infancy; 
with this difference though that with us the child 
finds an instructed person to supply the answer to 
his question while there it is the child itself who 
gives the answer with the same simplicity. It seems 
to m6 as difficult to understand the true point of 
view of science without having studied those primi- 
tive savants as to have the lofty sense of poetry 
without having studied primitive poesy, 

A busy civilization like ours is by no means favour- 
able to the glorifying of those speculative wants. 
Nowhere is curiosity more keen, more disinterested, 
more attracted by the outward than in the child and 
the savage. How sincerely and simply interested 
they are in nature, in animals, without a single second 
thought or a respect for humanity (2). The busy man, 
on the contrary, is bored in the company of nature 
and of animals ; those disinterested enjoyments 
are no part or parcel of his egoism. Unsophisti- 
cated man, left to his own thought, often conceives 
a more complete and far-reaching system of things 
than he who has only received a conventional and 
fictitious education. The habits of practical life 
weaken the instinct of pure curiosity ; but there is 
comfort to the lover of science in the thought that 
nothing can destroy it, that the monument to which 
he has added a stone is eternal, that like morality, 
it has its guarantee in the very instincts of human 
nature. 

As a rule science is only looked at from the stand- 
point of its practical results and its civilizing effects. 
There is no great difficulty in finding out that modern 



16 The Future of Science. 

society is indebted to it for its principal improvements. 
This is very true, but nevertheless, putting the thesis 
in a dangerous way. One might just as well, in order 
to establish the claims of morality point exclusively 
to the benefits society derives from it. Science, as 
well as morality is valuable in itself and indepen- 
dently of all beneficent results. 

These results are, moreover, nearly always con- 
ceived in a mean and shabby spirit. As a rule 
people remain blind to anything but practical appli- 
cations which no doubt have their importance 
inasmuch as by their rebound they powerfully con- 
tribute to mental progress but which in themselves 
have little or no ideal value. Moral applications, 
in fact, almost always lead science astray from its 
true aim. To study history for no other purpose 
than the lessons of morality or practical wisdom to 
be deduced from it is simply to revive the ridiculous 
theory of those poor interpreters of Aristotle who 
considered the only object of dramatic art to be the 
cure of the passions it puts into action. The spirit" 
against which I am especially tilting here is that of 
English science, so lacking in loftiness, in philosophy. 
I know of no Englishman, Byron perhaps excepted, 
who has deeply grasped the philosophy of things. 
To order one's life in accordance with reason, to 
avoid error, not to embark upon enterprises that 
cannot be carried out, to provide for one's self a 
gentle and assured existence, to recognize the sim- 
plicity of the laws of the universe, to get hold of a 
few views of natural theology seems to be to the 
Englishman who thinks the sovereign aim of science. 
There is never as much as an idea of lofty and 
harassing speculation, never a deep glance at that 
which is. This, no doubt, arises from the fact, that 
with our neighbours, positive religion, kept under a 
conservative sequestration, is held to be unassail- 
able, is still considered as capable of giving the key 
to the enigma of great things (3). But science, in 
fact, being only of value in as far as it is capable of 



TJie Future of Science. 17 

replacing religion, what becomes of it under such a 
system? A" kind of petty process to knock a little 
bit of understanding into folk, a kind of help in 
obtaining a social status, a means of acquiring useful 
and interesting knowledge. All this is not worth a 
moment's consideration. As for myself, I only admit 
of one result of science, namely, the solution of the 
enigma, the final explanation to mankind of the 
meaning of things, the explanation of man to him- 
self, the giving to him in the name of the sole legiti- 
mate authority which is the whole of human nature 
itself, of the creed which religion gave him ready 
made and which he can no longer accept. To live 
without a system whereby to explain thiugs is not 
to live the life of man. I certainly understand scep- 
ticism, it is a system that may be as good as any other ; 
it has its grandeur and noble qualities. I understand 
faith, I envy its possessors and regret perhaps not 
possessing it myself. But what seems to me most 
monstrous in humanity is indifference and flippancy. 
As intelligent as you please, he who face to face 
with the infinite fails to perceive that he is sur- 
rounded by problems and mysteries is to me nothing 
better than an imbecile. 

It has become a hackneyed truth by now to say 
that the world is governed by ideas. Still, it is after 
all but saying what ought to be and what will be 
rather than what has been. There is no gainsaying 
that in history we should make large allowances for 
force, for whim, and even for what is called accident, 
that is to say, to that, the moral cause of which is not 
proportionate to the effect (4). Philosophy, pure 
and simple, scarcely had any immediate influence 
on human progress until the eighteenth century, and 
it would be much nearer the mark to assert that it 
is the historical period which creates the philosophy 
than that the philosophy creates the period. But 
what admits of no doubt is that humanity amidst 
its oscillations ever tends to a condition of greater 
perfection, that it has the right and the power to 

o 



18 Tlie Future of Science. 

make reason more and more predominant over whim 
and instinct in the government of things. It is of 
no use arguing with him who has not recognized by 
now that history is not merely so much aimless agi- 
tation, a movement without a result. One will never 
succeed in proving the onward course of humanity 
to him who has not managed to find it out for 
himself. The first word of the creed of the nine- 
teenth century is contained in the immense results 
achieved by the science of humanity during the last 
hundred years. Above the individual stands collective 
humanity which lives and develops like every other 
organic being and which like every organic being 
tends towards perfection, that is, to the plenitude of 
its being (5). After having groped for many long 
centuries in the darkness of infancy without con- 
sciousness of itself and by the mere motive power of 
its organism, the grand moment came when, like the 
individual, it took possession of itself, as it were, 
when it became aware of its own strength, when it 
felt itself to be a living unity ; a moment for ever 
to be remembered, a moment we do not see because 
it is too near to us, but which, it seems to me, will 
be considered by future generations as a revolution 
comparable to that which has marked a new era in 
the history of all the nations. Barely half a century 
has elapsed since humanity began to understand and 
reflect upon, itself ; and still we profess to be sur- 
prised at the consciousness of its unity and mutual 
adherence being so weak (6). The French Eevolution 
is the first attempt of humanity to take the reins in 
its own hands and to drive itself. It is the advent 
of the power of reflection in the government of 
humanity. It is the moment corresponding to that 
in which the child hitherto led by spontaneous 
instinct, by mere whim, by the will of others, takes 
up his stand as a free, moral being, responsible for 
his acts. All that went before may be called in the 
words of Robert Owen " the irrational period of 
human existence ; " and one day this period will only 



The Future of Science. 10 

count in the history of humanity and in that of our 
nation in particular as a curious preface, something 
like that chapter on the history of the Gauls which 
generally precedes the history of France. The real 
history of France begins at 1789, all that goes before 
is but the slow preparation of '89 and is of no interest 
except as viewed in that light. In fact, study history 
as you may you will find nothiug analogous to that 
immense fact presented by the whole of the eighteenth 
century ; of philosophers, men of wit in no way con- 
cerned with actual politics, radically changing the 
whole of previously received ideas and carrying the 
greatest of all revolutions, conscientiously, and with 
deliberation on the faith of their systems. The revo- 
lution of '89 is a revolution wrought by philosophers. 
Condorcet, Mirabeau, Robespierre are the first 
ii] stances of theorists meddling with the direction 
of affairs and endeavouring to govern humanity in 
a reasonable and scientific manner. All the members 
of the Constituent Assembly, of the Legislative 
Assembly and the Convention were literally and 
almost without exception disciples of Voltaire and 
Rousseau. I will show by and bye how this chariot 
driven by such hands could not be driven so well at 
first as it was when it rolled along by itself and 
how it was almost bound to be shattered to pieces in 
an abyss. For the present it is sufficient to note 
the matchless audacity, the marvellous and bold 
attempt to reform the world according to the dic- 
tates of common sense, to attack everything savour- 
ing of prejudice, the blind established thing, habits 
to all appearances irrational, in order to replace them 
by a system calculated like a formula, combined like 
an artificial machine (7). This, I repeat, is a thing 
unique and without example in all the preceding 
centuries, nay, it constitutes in itself an age in the 
history of humanity. Surely, an attempt such could 
not be without blemish in every respect. Because 
those institutions that seem so absurd are not alto- 
gether so absurd as they seem, those prejudices have 



20 The Future of Science. 

their sensible side which you fail to -see. The prin- 
ciple involved in all this admits of no controversy, 
intelligence alone must reign, intelligence alone ; 
in other words, sense must govern the world. But 
are you sure that your analysis is complete, that you 
are not led into denying what you do not understand 
and that a more advanced philosophy will not succeed 
in justifying the spontaneous work of humanity ? 
There is nothing easier than to show that the majority 
of prejudices on which the old society was based; 
the privileges of the nobilitjT", the law of primo- 
geniture, legitimacy, etc., are irrational and absurd 
from the point of view of abstract reason, that in a 
society constituted regularly such superstitions would 
find no abiding place. There is an analytical and 
seductive clearness about this such as the eighteenth 
century loved. But is that a reason to blame abso- 
lutely these abuses in the old structure of humanity 
in which they enter as an integral part ? It is certain 
that the criticism of those first reformers was on 
many points harsh, that it showed the non- intelligent 
side of spontaneity, the arrogant pride of the easy 
discoveries of analytical reason. 

As a rule the philosophy of the eighteenth century 
and the policy of the first Revolution show the errors 
inseparable from crude reflexion, the non-intelligent 
side of mere mother-wit, the tendency to con- 
sider as absurd that of which one fails to see the 
immediate reason. That century only understood 
itself and judged all the others by its own. Domi- 
nated by the idea of the inventive power of man, 
it extended too much the sphere of deliberate in- 
vention. In poetry it substituted artificial com- 
position for the innate inspiration that wells up from 
the recesses of the heart without troubling about 
literary composition. In politics man was supposed 
to create freely and deliberately society and the 
authority that rules it. In morality man found and 
established the principle of duty as a useful inven- 
tion. In psychology he seemed to be the creator of 



TJie Future of Science. 21 

the results most necessary to his constitution. In 
philology the grammarians of the period spent their 
time in showing the inconsistency, the errors of 
speech such as the people had made it and in cor- 
recting the deviations that had hecome habit by 
logical argument without perceiving that the terms 
which they want to suppress are as a rule more 
logical, clearer and easier than those they want to 
substitute for them. That century did not under- 
stand nature, spontaneous activity. No doubt man 
produces, in a certain sense, all that comes out of 
his nature. He spends all his active energy upon it, 
he supplies the brute strength which brings about 
the result, but the directing of all this does not 
belong to him. He supplies the material, the shape 
of it comes to him from on high ; the real author is 
that living and truly divine force, secreted as it 
were by the human faculty, which is neither con- 
vention, nor calculation, but which produces its 
effect out of its own self and by its own tension. 
Hence arises the tendency towards the artificial, 
towards the merely mechanical with which w T e are 
still so deeply smitten. We fancy that we shall 
be able to foresee all possible cases, but the work 
is so complex as to set all our efforts at naught. 
The holy horror of the arbitrary is carried so far 
as to become destructive of all initiative. The in- 
dividual is so swaddled round with rules and regu- 
lations, cramping his every limb that a lay-figure 
could do as much as he if we fashioned it to move 
to the turning of a handle. The differeuce between 
mediocrity and distinction in the individual has 
in that way become almost insignificant, adminis- 
tration has become a soulless machine which will 
accomplish the w r ork of a man. France is too apt 
to believe that one may supply the private im- 
pulse of the soul by mechanism and extraneous 
process. Nay, there have been attempts to apply 
this detestable spirit to even more delicate things, 
to education, to morality (8). Have not w T e seen 



22 The Future of Science. 

ministers of public instruction who pretended to turn 
out great men by means of suitable regulations ? Did 
not they conceive a process of making man moral 
as one makes fruit ripe by squeezing it between one's 
fingers ? Ye of little faith in nature, why not leave 
it to the sun ? 

Such then are the excusable and necessary errors 
of centuries in which reflection takes the place of 
spontaneity (9). And although this first degree 
of consciousness is an immense progress, the con- 
dition resulting from it may have seemed in some 
of its aspects inferior to that which went before, 
and the enemies of humanity have been enabled to 
take advantage of it by combating the dogma of 
progress with some show of plausibility (1CT. In 
fact during the blind and irrational state, affairs 
proceeded spontaneously and by themselves by virtue 
of established order. The world had institutions 
made of one piece, the origin of which was never 
questioned, dogmas that were accepted without criti- 
cism. The world was a huge machine organized 
so long ago and with so little thought that people 
believed it had been put together by God Himself. 
Such was no longer the case the moment humanity 
wanted to govern itself and to underpin the in- 
stinctive structure of ages. Instead of old insti- 
tutions whose origin was lost and which merely 
seemed the necessary result of the equilibrium of 
things, it had constitutions made by the hands of 
men, brand-new, with corrections and sentences 
struck out and from this very fact shorn of the old 
prestige. And seeing that it knew the authors of 
the new work, that mankind considered itself their 
equal in authority, that the improvised machine had 
visible defects, and that the whole of the business 
was henceforth transferred to a field open to dis- 
cussion there was no reason why it should ever be 
declared closed again. The result was an era of 
upheaval and instability during which the dull but 
honest minded might well regret the old order of 



The Future of Science. 23 

things. One might just as well prefer the positive 
assertions of bygone science which was never at a 
loss to the prudent hesitations and fluctuations of 
modern science. No doubt, the uncontrolled reign 
of absolutism in politics as in philosophy is the one 
conducive to the greatest amount of rest and the 
grands seigneurs who are fond of rest are most 
likely to be fond of such a regime. Oscillation on 
the other hand is the necessary condition of true 
human development, and modern constitutions are 
perfectly consistent in laying down periodical terms 
for their further modification. 

Hence it is not surprising that after the disappear- 
ance of the primitive state and the destruction of 
the old edifices built up by the blind conscience of 
ages, there should be some regrets, and that the new 
structures should be by no means equal to the old. » 

Imperfect thought cannot reproduce at the first 
attempt the works of human nature, acting with all 
its innate forces. Combination is as powerless to 
reconstruct the works of instinct as art is power- 
less to imitate the blind work of the insect that 
spins its web or builds its honey-cells. Is that a 
reason to give up reflective science, to go back to 
blind instinct ? Certainly not. It is a reason for 
continuing to inquire to the end, with the assurance 
that perfected thought will reproduce the same 
works but with a higher degree of clearness and 
reasoning. We must hope, march onward, and keep 
on marching always, despising meanwhile the objec- 
tions of sceptics. Besides, the first step has been 
taken already, humanity has once for all begun the 
task of its emancipation, it has attained its majority, 
wishing to govern itself, and supposing even that 
advantage might be taken of a moment's sleep to 
impose fresh chains upon it, it will be mere child's 
play to break them. The only means to reconsti- 
tute the bygone condition of things would be to 
destroy its consciousness by destroying science and 
intellectual culture. There are people who know 



24 The Future of Science. 

this, but I pledge you my word that they will not 
succeed in doing it. 

Such then is the condition of the human intelli- 
gence. It has overthrown gothic edifices, constructed 
one knows not well how, but which sufficed never- 
theless to shelter humanity. Then it tried to rebuild 
the edifice on better proportions, without, however, 
succeeding ; for the old temples raised by humanity 
had some wonderful subtleties of architecture and 
design which were not perceived at first and which 
the modern engineers with all their geometry cannot 
contrive to compass. Besides, the world has become 
more difficult to please and does not like to fatigue 
itself in sheer waste. The preceding centuries did not 
complain of the organization of society because there 
was no organization to speak of. The evil was 
accepted as emanating from fate. What would arouse 
an outcry nowadays did not provoke a murmur then. 
The neo-feudalistic school has taken a singularly 
unfair advantage of this misunderstanding. What 
are we to do ? Reconstruct the old temple ? That 
would be more difficult still, for even if its original 
plan were not lost, the materials could never be 
found again. What is wanted, is to look for the 
perfect beyond, to push science to its furthermost 
limits. Science and science alone is capable of re- 
storing to humanity that without which it cannot 
live ; a creed and a law. 

The dogma which must be maintained at any cost 
is that the mission of intellect is the reforming of 
society according to its own principles ; that it is by 
no means conspiring against Providence to attempt 
to improve its work by well considered efforts. 
True optimism can only be conceived under such 
conditions. Optimism would be a mistake if man 
were not susceptible of beiug made more perfect if it 
were not given to him to improve the established con- 
dition of things by science. The formula; "Every- 
thing is for the best," would without this be only a 
bitter mockery (11). Yes, everything is for the best 



TJie Future of Science. 25 

thanks to human intelligence capable of reforming 
the necessary imperfections of the first establishment 
of things. Let us rather say, " Everything will be 
for the best when man, having accomplished his 
legitimate task, shall have restored harmony in the 
moral world and conquered the physical world." As 
for bygone conceptions of Providence in which the 
world is conceived as made once for all, and bound 
to remain as it is, in which the effort of mankind 
against fate is considered as so much sacrilege, these 
conceptions are vanquished and obsolete. What is 
very certain, at any rate, is that they will not hinder 
man in his task of reformation, that he will persist 
per fas et nefas in correcting Creation ; that he will 
pursue to the end his holy work, viz. to fight blind 
causes and the fortuitous establishment of things, ta 
substitute reason for necessity. The religions of the 
East enjoin man to put up with evil ; European 
religion is summed up in the few words; ''Fight 
against the evil." This race is verily the offspring 
of Iapetvrs ; it is bold against God. 

The keen observer will notice that this is the 
kernel of the problem, that the whole of the struggle 
at this moment lies between the old and the new 
ideas of theism and morality. It is sufficient that he 
should see it. We have reached the sacred line 
where the doctrines divide ; one point of divergence 
between two rays starting from the centre places the 
infinite between them. But this much should be 
remembered ; that the theories of progress are irre- 
concilable with the ancient doctrine of divine justice, 
that their only meaning lies in attributing divine 
action to the human intellect, in one word, by ad- 
mitting as the primordial power in the world the 
reformiug power of the spirit. 

The secret link of these doctrines is nowhere more 
apparent than in the last book of M. Guizot, a book 
of the greatest value and which will retain the privi- 
lege of being read by posterity, because it sets forth 
in a highly original manner a curious intellectual 



26 The Future of Science. 

moment. "Will people five hundred years hence 
believe that one of the foremost minds of the nine- 
teenth century could have said that since the eman- 
cipation of various classes of society the number of 
distinguished men has not increased in France, "as 
if Providence," he adds, " did not permit human laws 
to affect the intellectual order of things, with regard to 
the extent and magnificence of his gifts " (12). The 
Aristarchi of that time will consider this passage an 
interpolation and will advance peremptory proofs to 
that effect. They will say that so narrow-minded a 
conception of the government of the world could 
have never entered the mind of the author of " The 
History of Civilization." But how will they manage 
to excuse an argument like the following; "Up to 
this time society has always presented three types of 
social condition ; men living on their income, men 
exploiting their income, men living by their work. 
Hence we may take this to be the natural condition 
of humanity, and thus it will ever be." Equally 
valid would the argument of antiquity have been ; 
" Society has up till now always had three classes of 
men, an aristocracy, freedmen, slaves. Hence we 
may take this to be the natural condition of humanity, 
hence it will always be." It would have been just as 
reasonable to say in 1780, "Till now the State has 
always contained three classes of men, the governors, 
the aristocracy, limiting the power of the latter, the 
plebeians ; hence we may take this to be the natural 
condition of humanity ; hence, you who wish to 
change this condition of things are nothing better 
than a parcel of dangerous lunatics, of Utopians." 

Assuredly no one is more profoundly convinced 
than I am of the impossibility of reforming human 
nature. But narrow-minded and dictatorial people 
have a strange way of interpreting human nature. 
To them human nature means that which they see 
of it existing in their own times and the preservation 
of which they ardently desire. There are a great 
many better reasons for maintaining that a privileged 



The Future of Science. 27 

aristocracy is essential to every society than for main- 
taining that a moneyed aristocracy is necessary to it. 
The truth is that human nature is only made up of 
instincts and very general principles which by no 
means sanction or sanctify one social condition in 
preference to another, but only certain conditions 
of the social fabric, such as for instance the family, 
individual property. The truth is that with the 
eternal principles of his nature at. work, man can 
reform the political and social edifice; he can do 
this, seeing that undoubtedly he has already done 
it, seeing that there is no one who does not admit 
actual society to be better organized in certain re- 
spects than that ol the past. " It is the result of 
religion ;" people will say. Granted that it is, but 
what is religion if not the most beautiful and energetic 
creation of human nature ? The appeal to human 
nature is the final argument in all social and philo- 
sophical questions. But w T e should be careful not 
to invoke this nature in a petty and narrow-minded 
manner with regard to the habits and customs, the 
order of things we are actually witnessing. It is a 
much deeper ocean, the bottom of which is not so 
easily reached, and which the weak-sighted cannot 
even perceive. How numerous are the ridiculous 
errors in commonplace psychology springing from 
neglect of this principle ! They are nearly all due 
to the narrow ideas that prevail with regard to the 
revolutions already undergone by the moral and 
social system, to ignorance of the profound difference 
existing ' between the various literatures, and the 
feelings of various peoples. 

Without altogether pinning his faith to one 
particular system of moral reform no lofty and pene- 
trating mind will be able to deny that the very 
question of that reform is of kind different from that 
of political reform, the legitimacy of the latter being, 
I trust, beyond controversy. The social fabric like 
the political has been shaped under the influence of 
blind instinct. It is the mission of human intelligence 



28 The Future of Science. 

to correct it. It is not a bit more illegal to say- 
that society may be improved than to wish the Shah 
of Persia to improve his government. The first time 
this terrible problem was assailed ; to reform political 
society by human reasoning there was no doubt an 
outcry at the boldness of the thought, at the unheard- 
of attempt. The conservatives of '89 could oppose 
to the revolutionaries what the conservatives of 1849 
opposed to the socialists. You attempt to do a thing 
which has no precedent, you are attacking the work 
of ages, you do not take into account history and 
human nature. The cheap bombast of the middle 
classes against the hereditary nobility; "You only 
had the trouble to be born, etc.," may with advantage 
be retorted against the moneyed classes. It is very 
patent that the existence of a nobility is not rational, 
that it is the result of the blind ordering of humanity. 
But if we are to argue in that way, where are we to 
stop ? There is no great merit in twitting it with 
its want of rationality ; it is simply an indefensible 
truism. I am even bound to admit that, all things 
considered, the attempt of the political reformers of 
'89 seems to me a great deal bolder in its aim and 
above all more wonderful than that of the social re- 
formers of our days. Hence, I fail to understand 
how people who admit '89 can reject as a matter of 
right social reform. As for the means, I understand, 
I repeat, the most radical diversity. No general 
difficulties have been advanced against the socialists 
which may not be equally advanced against the con- 
stituents. It is a bold thing to assign limits to the- 
re forming power of human reason and to reject no 
matter what attempt on the plea that it is without 
precedent. Every reform was characterized by the 
same defect originally, and besides, they who prefer 
that reproach do so nearly always because they have 
not a sufficiently extensive idea of the various forms 
of human society and of its history. 

In the East thousands of people die of starvation 
or of wretchedness without ever having thought of 



The Future of Science. 29 

revolting against the established powers. In Europe, 
rather than die of hunger a man thinks it simpler 
to snatch up a rifle and to attack society, guided as 
he is by that profound and instinctive view that 
society has duties with regard to him which it has 
never fulfilled. We find at every page of our actual 
literature some remarkable turn, which is perhaps 
not thirty years old ; it is merely a way of looking 
upon individual suffering as a social evil and making 
society responsible for the wretchedness and degrad- 
ing condition of its members. A novel idea, a 
•thoroughly novel idea, assuredly. We have ceased 
to consider those evils as emanating from fate (13). 
Well, we had better remember that humanity has 
never taken up a standpoint to relinquish it im- 
mediately afterwards. 

Hence, by every way open to us we are beginning 
to proclaim the right of human reason to reform 
society by means of rational science, and the theo- 
retical knowledge of existing things. It is, therefore, 
no exaggeration to say that science contains the future 
of humanity, that it alone can give us the explana- 
tion of its destiny and teach it the way to attain its 
object. Until now it is not human reason that has 
governed the world, but whim and passionate im- 
pulse. The day will come when reason enlightened 
by experience will resume its legitimate sway, the 
only one that can claim the title of "right divine," 
and will lead the world, no longer at haphazard, but 
with a clear perception of the goal to be reached. 
Our period of passionate impulse and error will then 
appear as so much pure barbarism, or as the capri- 
cious and fantastical age which in the child divides 
the charms of tender age from the rational existence 
of the mature man. Our mechanical politics, our 
blind and selfish parties will seem like so many 
monsters of another age. People will no longer 
understand how a century could have accorded the 
title of " able "to a man like Talleyrand, who looked 
upon the government of mankind as upon a mere game 



30 The Future of Science. 

of chess, without having an idea as to the object to 
be attained, without having as much as an idea of 
humanity itself. The science which will govern the 
world will not be politics. Politics, that is, the way 
to govern humanity like a machine will vanish as a 
special art as soon as humanity shall cease to be a 
machine. The master science, the then sovereign, 
will be philosophy, that is to say, the science which 
will investigate the aim and conditions of society. 
"In politics," says Herder, "man is a means, in 
morality, he is an end. The revolution of the 
future will be the triumph of morals over politics. 

Hence, the scientific organization of humanity is 
the final word of modern science, that is, its bold, but 
legitimate pretension. I w T ill go further still. The 
universal task of all that breathes being to make God 
'perfect, that is, to further the grand final result 
which will close the circle of humanity by the unity 
of the whole, it admits of no question that human 
reason which until now has had no share in this 
work, the latter having been accomplished blindly 
and by the mere tendency of everything, that is, 
it admits of no question, I repeat, that human 
reason will one day take in hand the management of 
this work and after having organized humanity 
will organize God (14). I do not insist upon this 
point and am willing that people should treat it as 
a mere illusion, because to many worthy minds 
which I wish to please, it would seem questionable 
form ; besides, I do not require it in support of my 
thesis. I will confine myself to saying that nothing 
should astonish us, considering that the whole of the 
progress accomplished up to the present moment is 
perhaps no more than the first page of the preface of 
a work without end. 



The Future of Science. 31 



CHAPTEE III. 

People may, if they like, consider the whole of the 
foregoing as absurd and chimerical, but I beg of them, 
in the name of Heaven, to grant me this, that science 
alone can supply mankind with those vital truths, 
without which life would be unbearable and society 
impossible If we could conceive the possibility of 
arriving at those truths in any other way than by 
the patient study of things, higher science would 
have meaning no longer. We should have erudition, 
the curiosity of the amateur, but not science in the 
noblest acceptation of the term, and noble natures 
would assuredly forbear engaging in researches, 
having neither horizon nor future. Thus those who 
think that metaphysical speculation, pure reasoning, 
can, without tYiopr a g viatic study of what is, supply 
us with the higher truths must necessarily despise 
that which to them is nothing more than useless 
lumber, an unnecessary and cumbersome burden to 
the intellect. Malebranche has not been too severe 
upon those savants, " who make their brain a store- 
house in which the} 7 pile up without discernment 
everything that presents a certain character of learn- 
ing, and who pride themselves on their likeness to 
those collections of curiosities and antiquities and 
which have neither a monetary nor an archaeological 
value, and the price of which simply depends upon 
fancy, accident or passion." Those who think 
that matter of fact sense, common sense is a suf- 
ficiently efficient teacher to mankind must look upon 



32 The Future of Science, 

the savant in about the same way that Socrates 
looked upon the sophists ; as useless and subtle dis- 
putators. Those who think that feeling and imagi- 
nation, the spontaneous instincts of human nature 
can get at essential truths of life by a kind of in- 
tuition will be equally consistent in considering the 
researches of the savant as ponderous and of no use, 
or else as frivolous superfluities not having the merit 
even of being amusing. In short those who think 
that human reason cannot attain to the higher truths 
and that a superior power ouly has the mission of 
revealing these to them also contribute to the de- 
struction of science by depriving it of what constitutes 
its life and its true value. 

What, in fact, does there remain, if you deny 
science its philosophical aim ? Trifling details, 
capable, no doubt, of whetting the curiosity of in- 
quiring minds and of providing a pastime to those 
who have nothing better to do ; very indifferent to 
those who look upon life as a serious matter and who 
above all, concern themselves with the moral and 
religious needs of man. Science is of value only in 
as far as it can investigate what revelation professes 
to teach. If you take away that which constitutes its 
worth you leave it only an insipid residuum, fit at best 
to iiing to those who feel the want of a bone to 
gnaw. I sincerely congratulate the good souls that 
are content with this, as for myself I will have none 
of it. The moment a doctrine intercepts my horizon, 
I declare it to be false, the infinite only is to be 
my background. If you offer me a system ready- 
made, what then remains there for me to do ? To 
verify by rational research what revelation teaches 
me ? That would indeed be a useless exercise, a 
frittering away of time most frivolous, for if I know 
beforehand that what I have been taught is absolutely 
true there is no need of my tiring myself in looking 
for its' demonstration. It is tantamount to wanting 
to observe the stars with the naked eye when one 
might use a telescope. It is tantamount to appeal- 



Trie Future of Science. 33 



ino- to men when one may claim the authority of 
the Holy Spirit. I only know of one contradiction 
more flagrant than that ; a constitutional pope. 

I shall be told that there remains a vast field of 
inquiry in the natural truths which God has given for 
disputation by mankind. Yast you call it, when 
you take away God, man, mankind, the origins of 
the universe. I myself think it very narrow and at 
best fit for those who to their need of believing add 
the need of disputing. You think I ought to be 
very thankful for allowing me to exercise my mind 
on a few not clearly defined points by flinging to me 
the world as a bone of contention and by warning 
me distinctly that from the first word to the last 
I shall not. understand a syllable. Science is not 
a dispute of a few otiose minds on a few questions 
left to them as food for their taste for controversy. 
Lives there the lofty mind that would devote his 
life to such humble and debasing labour ? I feel 
reluctant to answer because to remove beforehand 
the objections that might be addressed to me here, 
would require long explanations and numerous re- 
servations ; profane science in any system of frankly 
admitted revelation can only be a disputation (15). 
That which is essential has been given ; the only 
serious science will be that of commenting on the 
revealed word ; no other will be of any value except 
in connection with this. Orthodox people have as a 
rule very little scientific honesty. They do not in- 
vestigate, they try to prove and this must necessarily 
be so. The result has been given to them before- 
hand ; this result is true, undoubtedly true. Science 
has no business with it, science which starts from 
doubt without knowing whither it is going, and gives 
itself up bound hand and foot to criticism which 
leads it wheresoever it lists. I know the theological 
method very well and may safely affirm that its pro- 
cess is opposed to the true scientific spirit. Heaven 
forbid I should deny that among the most sincere 
believers there have been men who have rendered 



34 The Future of Science. 

the most eminent services to science ; and to go no 
further back than our contemporaries it is among 
the sincerest Catholics that I should perhaps find the 
men most sympathetic to my intellect and heart. 
But if I were allowed to corne to a very close under- 
standing with them, we should soon see how far their 
scientific ardour partakes of the character of a noble 
inconsistency. Let me be allowed to cite an instance 
in point. To my mind Silvestre de Sacy is the type 
of the orthodox savant. Undoubtedly, one could not 
possibly demand science of a higher standard as far 
as correctness and criticism of detail go. But if 
one looks higher, we have the strange fact of one 
of the most learned men of modern times never 
having arrived at a single idea of lofty criticism. 
When for critical or other purposes I am studying 
the man's works — an eminently respectable man, I 
am always tempted to ask him, " What is the good 
of it all ? what is the use of knowing Hebrew, 
Arabic, Samaritan, Syriac, Chaldaic, Ethiopian, Per- 
sian, what is the good of being the foremost in Europe 
in the knowledge of the literatures of the East, if 
one has not grasped the idea of humanity, if the 
whole of all this has been conceived without a higher 
and religious aim." True higher science only com- 
mence when human reason conceives its task 
seriously, when it says to itself; "Everything else 
fails me; my salvation depends upon myself." It is 
only then that one resolutely sets to work ; it is then 
that everything reassumes its value in view of a 
final result. We have done with playing at science, 
with making it a theme for insipid and pointless para- 
doxes (16) ; we are upon the great business of man 
and mankind ; hence, there is begotten a seriousness, 
an attention, a respect unknown to those who only 
embarked upon science with but one part of them- 
selves. One must not be too exacting ; to work out 
one's salvation is the only thing needful, one will 
lend one's self to the rest as to a secondary matter, 
one will not be comfortable in it ; if one's taste leans 



The Future of Science. 



loo much that way one will reproach one's self for it 
a? for a weakness, one will be only semi-profane, one 
will do like Saint Augustine and Alcuin who accuse 
themselves of being too fond of Virgil. They are 
not as guilty as they think they are. Human nature, 
in reality stronger than all the religious systems hits 
upon some secret modes of taking its revenge. Has 
not Islamism, by the most flagrant of contradictions 
nourished in its own bosom a development of purely 
rationalistic science ? Kepler, Newton, Descartes 
and the majority of the founders of modern science 
were believers. Truly, a strange illusion, which 
proves at least the good faith of those who under- 
took that work, but more still the fate that impels 
the human intellect, entering the paths of rationalism, 
to an absolute breach, which at first it repels, with 
all positive religion. With some of those great men 
this was explained by the limited view they had of 
science and its aim ; with others as with Descartes 
(17), whose pretension was really to deduce from 
reason the truths essential to mankind, there was 
a manifest superfetation, the use of two mechanisms 
to attain the same end. I beg the reader to re- 
member that there is no need for me to take my 
stand here as a controversialist, to prove that 
science and' revelation contradict one another; it is 
sufficient for me that there is double employment to 
prove my actual thesis. In a revealed system, science 
has only a very secondary value and does not deserve 
devoting one's life to it, because that which con- 
stitutes its worth is given elsewhere in a much more 
eminent manner. No, one can serve two masters, 
nor worship a double ideal. 

As for me, I saj T it with the candour which, I trust, 
the reader will not question (he who is not candid at 
twenty-five is a wretch) that I cannot conceive the 
higher science, the science understanding its aim 
and its end, except as outside all supernatural belief. 
It is the pure love of science that made me break 
the bonds of all revealed belief, and the day I declared 



36 The Future of Science. 

myself to be without any other master than human 
reason, I felt that I was laying down the conditions 
of science and philosophy. If on reading these lines 
some religious soul should fancy that I am insulting 
him, I should tell him ; "No, T am your brother; I 
would insult nothing that belongs to the soul. It is 
because I am in earnest that I speak like this, it is 
because I look upon things religious in the most 
serious light.*' If like so many others I looked upon 
religion as merely a machine, a dyke, a useful pre- 
judice, I should assume that indescribable semi-tone 
which in reality is only so much indifference and 
flippancy. But seeing that I believe in truth, the 
same that I believe Christianity to be a serious and 
important thing, there is a quasi-air of the controver- 
sialist about me and certain squeamish minds will I 
am certain raise the outcry about a recrudescence of 
Yoltairianism. I am. glad to have the opportunity 
of telling people once for all that if I import into 
religious discussion a frankness and heaviness of 
hand which are no longer the fashion, it is because 
I take it in sober earnest and with the deepest 
respect. You have no more dangerous enemy, 
gentlemen than those wary, half-hearted and merely 
insinuating critics. The least . controversial age is 
after all the most incredulous and frivolous one. If, 
therefore, I am more candid and pointblank, it is 
because I am more deferential to, more anxious 
for intrinsic truth. Of course people will say that 
it argues a want of tact to take things in that 
way. 

I shall often, in my life, have occasion to speak of 
Christianity. How could I do otherwise ? The 
glory of Christianity lies in the fact of its engrossing 
still half of our earnest thoughts, of engrossing the 
attention of all thinkers, of those who struggle as 
well as of those who believe. I managed for a long 
while to write and to think as if there were no 
religions in the world, like so many rationalistic 
philosophers who have written volumes upon volumes 



The Future of Science. 37 



without broaching a word about Christianity. But 
this abstention seemed to me subsequently so irre- 
verent towards history, so partial, so great a denial 
of all that is most sublime in human nature, that, at 
the risk of offending inquisitors and philosophers 
alike, I have made up my mind to take the human 
intellect as it is and not to deprive myself of the 
study of its more beautiful half. In my opinion 
religions are worth speaking about and there is as 
much philosophy in the study of them as in a few 
chapters of dry and insipid moral philosophy.' 

The day is not far distant when with a little 
candour on both sides and by the removal of mis- 
understandings that divide those best fit to under- 
stand one another, the world will be bound to admit 
that the lofty perception of things, higher criticism, 
deep love, truly divine art, and the sacred ideal of 
morality are impossible except on the condition of 
taking one's stand at the very outset in the divine ; 
of declaring that everything which is pure, beautiful 
and lovable is equally sacred and woruhy of worship, 
of considering everything that is as appertaining to 
one sole order of things which is nature itself, as the 
variety, the blossoming, the germination of a selfsame 
and living substratum. 

Science really worthy of the name is therefore 
impossible except on the condition of most perfect 
autonomy. Criticism is no respecter of things ; it 
neither stops at mystery or prestige, it breaks every 
charm, it pulls aside every veil. This power, utterly 
lacking in reverence casting an unflinching and scru- 
tinizing glance on everything alike, is from its very 
essence guilty of high treason against the divine and 
the human. It is the sole authority without control ; 
it is the spiritual man of Saint Paul " who judgeth 
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." The 
cause of criticism is the cause of rationalism, and the 
cause of rationalism is the cause of the modern spirit 
itself. To curse rationalism is to curse the whole 
development of human intelligence from Petrarch 



38 The Future of Science, 

and Bocaccio, that is, from the first appearance of 
the critical spirit. It is crying back to the Middle 
Ages. No, it is not that, because even the Middle 
Ages bad their bold attempts at rationalism. It is 
tantamount to proclaiming the uncontrolled sway 
of superstition and credulity. The real question at 
issue is to know whether we are to go back five 
centuries and to blame a development which was 
evidently called for by the necessity of things. And 
a priori and independently of all examination such 
a development carries its own legitimacy with it, for 
though the present century may not be infallibility 
itself, it is symbolic of the moment, and if there be 
an appeal against it, it must be an appeal to the 
future, not to the past If, in fact, we study the 
march of modern criticism since Petrarch and 
Bocaccio we shall find it always following the line 
of its inflexible progress, overthrowing one after the 
other all the idols of incomplete science, all the super- 
stitions of the past. First of all it is Aristotle, the 
god of mediaeval philosophy who succumbs beneath 
the blows of the reformers of the fifteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries with their grotesque procession of 
Arabs and commentators ; then comes the turn of 
Plato, who, set up for a little while against his rival, 
his doctrines preached like the gospel, recovers his 
dignity in dropping once more from the rank of 
prophet to that of man. After that it is the whole 
of antiquity which resumes its real significance and 
its importance — wrongly understood at first — in the 
history of human intellect ; then comes Homer, the 
ideal of ancient philology, who one day was missing 
from his three thousand year old pedestal, and went 
to drown himself in the fathomless ocean of humanity; 
then comes the whole of primitive history, accepted 
up till then in its grossest literamess, which finds 
ingenious interpreters, rationalistic hierophants who 
lift the veil from before the old mysteries. Then 
come writings hitherto considered sacred and which 
tested by an ingenious and subtle exegesis become 



The Future of Science. 39 

a most curious literature. Would you know what 
the work of modern criticism is ? Well, it is simply 
an admirable deciphering of a superstitious hiero- 
glyph, it is the bold march from the letter to the 
spirit. 

The modern spirit, then, means criticism, well- 
weighed intelligence. The belief in a revelation, in a 
supernatural order of things is the negation of criti- 
cism, it is the remains of the old anthropomorphic 
conception of the world, conceived at a time when 
man had not arrived at a clear perception of the laws 
of nature. When speaking of the supernatural we 
should say what Schleiermacher said of angels : " We 
cannot prove their impossibility. Nevertheless, the 
whole of this conception is such as to be impossible 
in our days, it belongs exclusively to the idea of the 
world as conceived by antiquity" (18). The belief in 
miracles, in fact, is the consequence of an intellectual 
view in which the world is considered as being 
governed by fautasy and not by immutable laws. 
No doubt, this is not the way in wnich the modern 
supernaturalist looks at it. Compelled by science 
which he dare not seriously offend to admit a stable 
order of things in nature he falls back upon the sup- 
position that the free action of God may change now 
and then, and thus the miracle is conceived as a 
deviation from the established laws. But this con- 
ception, I repeat, was by no means that of primitive 
man. The miracle in those days was not considered 
as supernatural. The idea of the supernatural only 
appears when the idea of the laws of nature has 
been clearly formulated and makes its influence felt 
even upon those who timidly attempt to reconcile 
the marvellous and that which is proved by experi- 
ment. It is one of the half-hearted compromises 
between primitive ideas and the data of experiment 
which are neither poetical nor scientific. To primi- 
tive man the miracle was, on the contrary, perfectly 
natural and confronted him at each step in life, or 
to speak correctly, neither laws nor nature counted 



40 The Future of Science. 

for much with those naive souls, perceiving every- 
where the immodiate action of free agents. The idea 
of the- laws of nature only appears very much later on 
and only becomes accessible to cultivated intellects. 
It is completely wanting in the savage and even 
nowadays the simple minded admit the miracle with- 
out the smallest difficulty. 

It is not from one argument only but from the 
whole of modern science that the tremendous result 
is derived. "There is no such thing as the super- 
natural." It is impossible to refute by direct argu- 
ments one who persists in believing in it ; he will 
snap his fingers at every a priori argument ; you 
might just as well argue with the savage on the 
absurdity of his fetishes. You cannot convert a 
believer in fetichism ; the only means to bring him 
to a superior religion is not to preach it to him 
directly, for if he accepts it in that condition, he 
will only accept it as another kind of fetichism, 
but to civilize him, to raise him to the rung of the 
human ladder to which that religion corresponds. 
The orthodox supernaturalist is equally unassailable. 
No logical or metaphysical argument has the slightest 
effect on him. But by taking one's stand on a high 
level of the development of human nature super- 
naturalism appears only as a conception that has 
been left behind. The sole cure of this strange 
malady, which to the disgrace of civilization has not 
disappeared as yet from humanity, is modern culture. 
Raise the intellect to the level of science, nourish 
it according to the rational method, and without a 
struggle, without arguments those superannuated 
superstitions will drop away. Since the dawn of 
existence everything that has happened in the pheno- 
menal world has been but the regular development 
of the laws relating to such existences, laws that 
constitute but one sole order of government which 
is nature. Whosoever speaks of anything as being 
above or beyond nature in the order of facts is guilty 
of contradiction, just as one would be in speaking 



TJie Future of Science. 41 



of the superdivine in the order of substances. It 
is simply a vain attempt to rise. above the highest. 
All facts have for their stage space or mind. Nature 
is simply human reason, it is the immutable, the ex- 
clusion of everything savouring of the whimsical; and 
our modern task will not be accomplished until we have 
destroyed the belief in the supernatural, no matter 
in what shape — the same that we have destroyed the 
belief in magic, in witchcraft. All these belong to 
the same order of things. Posterity will look upon 
those who are fighting supernaturalism in our days 
as we look upon those who fought against the belief 
in magic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
No doubt, the latter rendered eminent service to 
human reason, but their very victories have consigned 
them to oblivion. It is the fate of all those who 
fight against prejudices to be forgotten the moment 
those prejudices disappear. Positive and experi- 
mental science only, by imbuiug man with a strong 
sentiment of the reality of life, is capable of destroy- 
ing supernaturalism. Metaphysical speculation is 
far from attaining that object. India shows us the 
curious phenomenon of perhaps the most powerful 
metaphysical development ever realized by the human 
mind side by side with the most exuberant mythology. 
Speculations of the Kantian aud Schelling order 
have co-existed in the Brahmanic brain side by side 
with fables more extravagant than those sung by 
Ovid. 

In endeavouring to account for the motives that 
caused me to cease to believe in the Christianity 
that held my childhood and early youth spellbound, 
it seems to me that the system of things, such as 
I understand it to-day only differs from my first 
conceptions in that I consider all the real facts as 
belonging to the same order and that I have restored 
to nature that which I formerly looked upon as 
superior to nature. One is bound to admit that 
there was something admirably powerful and lofty 
in primitive supernaturalism, in the supernaturalism 



42 The Future of Science. 

which created the mythologies of India and Greece 
(19). I willingly forgive that supernatnralism, nay re- 
gret it at times, but it is no longer possible; reflection 
has made too many strides, and imagination has 
cooled down too much to allow of such superb anti- 
common seuse. As for the half-hearted conrpromise 
that seeks to reconcile an enfeebled supernaturalism 
with an intellectual condition incompatible with a 
belief in the supernatural, such a compromise only 
succeeds in outraging the most imperious scientific 
instincts of modern times without reviving the 
marvellous ancient poesy, henceforth and for ever 
impossible. Everything or nothing ; absolute super- 
naturalism or unreserved rationalism. 

Simple faith has its charms, but semi-criticism 
will never be anything but a burden to the spirit. 
The man who ponderously discusses fables shows 
himself as much of a simpleton and a gull though 
far less of a poet than he who accepts them " in a 
lump." We look upon the hagiologists of the seven- 
teenth century who in writing the " Lives of the 
Saints " accepted certain miracles while rejecting 
others as too extravagant as upon so many barbarians 
■ — and not unjustly. It is very evident that with 
such principles they should have rejected everything, 
and from the artistic point of view we prefer for 
instance the " Sainte-Elisabeth " of M. de Monta- 
lembert where everything is unreservedly accepted. 
In that case the line between the belief in nothing 
and the belief in everything is very vague both as 
regards the author and the reader. One may lean 
towards the one or the other according to the mood 
being rationalistic or poetic, while the work itself 
preserves at least an indisputable value as a work 
of art. That also was the beautiful and poetic 
way of Plato, that is the secret of the matchless 
charm which the half-sceptical, half-believing use of 
popular myths imparts to his philosophy. But the 
acceptance of a part can only proceed from a narrow 
mind. Nothing can be less philosophical than to 



The Future of Science. 43 

apply semi-criticism to narratives conceived beyond 
all criticism. 

Hence the task of modern criticism is to lay the 
axe to every system of belief tainted with super- 
naturalism. Islamism which, by a strange fate 
scarcely constituted as a religion in its earlier years 
has since then marched onward constantly acquiring 
new degrees of strength and stability, Islamism, I say 
will perish without striking a blow by the sheer in- 
fluence of European science, and history will point 
to oar century as the one in which the first causes 
of that immense event began to appear on the 
horizon. The Turkish and Egyptian youth coming 
to our schools in search of European science will 
take back with them that which is its inseparable 
corollary, the rational method, the spirit of experi- 
ment, the sentiment of the real, the impossibility 
of belief in religious traditions evidently conceived 
beyond all sphere of criticism. Rigidly orthodox 
Musulmans are already growing uneasy at this and 
pointing out the danger to the emigrating younger 
generation. Sheikh Rifaa in the interesting narra- 
tive of his journey in Europe lays great stress on the 
deplorable errors that disfigure our books on science, 
such as for instance, the motion of the earth, etc. ; 
and still deems it net utterly impossible to cleanse 
them of this poison. It is, however, patent that 
these heresies will shortly prove stronger than the 
•Koran with minds initiated to modern methods. I 
fancy that there also will occur a Renaissance ana- 
logous to that of Europe in the fifteenth century, 
and which will be due, not to our literature, which 
has no more meaning to the Oriental than had the 
literature of the Greeks to the Arabs of the ninth 
and tenth centuries, but to our science, which, like 
that of the Greeks, having no stamp of nationality, 
is a pure work of the human intellect (20). 

1 am aware that man has weakling, humble, 
feminine instincts, a kind of yielding softness, if I 
may so term it, possessing wide-spread analogies at 



44 The Future of Science. 



which one guesses without wishing to define them 
and which are as much perhaps the concern of the 
physiologist as that of the psychologist 21), instincts 
that suffer from the manly and firm attitude of 
rationalism which sometimes looks like stiffness (22). 
In the life of individuals, as in that of humanity 
there is a kind of medievalism, a movement in 
which reflection becomes veiled and obscured and 
in which instinct takes the upper hand for the time 
being. There are certain highly, delicately-strung 
souls to whom it will ever be impossible to submit 
to this severe system and austere discipline. Seeing 
that those instincts are part and parcel of human 
nature one should not blame them too much, and 
the true moral and intellectual system will assign 
their part to them; but that part must never be 
despondent depression or superstition. Great cala- 
mities by humiliating man and blunting the edge 
of his keenest and boldest faculties become in that 
way a downright danger to rationalism and inspire 
humanity, as illness inspires the individual with 
a certain tendency to submission, abasement and 
humiliation. A moisture-laden and enervating 
breeze, relaxing our rigidity, loosening that which 
held firm is wafted over us. One feels almost tempted 
to strike one's breast in atonement for the bold- 
ness felt while in good health, the mainsprings are 
weakened, generous and vigorous instincts drop, one 
feels a nameless inclination to become converted 
and to kneel down. If the calamities of the Middle 
Ages came back once more, the monasteries would 
become peopled again, the superstitions of the 
Middle Ages would return. The old beliefs have 
no resource left but ignorance and public calamities. 
Faith will always be in inverse ratio to vigour of 
mind and intellectual culture (23). It is there in the 
rear of humanity espying its weak moments to clasp 
it in its arms and to pretend afterwards that it is 
humanity which gave itself freely. As for ourselves 
we will not yield, we will hold out like Ajax against 



The Future of Science. 45 

the gods, if they count upou driving us back by 
striking us they are mistaken. Shame upon the 
timid ones that are afraid. Shame above all on those 
cowards who take advantage of our misery, who 
watch for the moment to conquer until misfortune 
has already half-conquered us. 

The everlasting objection which keeps away from 
rationalism certain distinguished natures which from 
their very delicacy of disposition feel the most urgent 
need of belief, is the brevity of its creed, the con- 
tradiction of its systems, the appearance of negation, 
which imparts a look of scepticism to it. But 
scantily gifted in the matter of intellect and critical 
faculty they would like a ready made system uniting 
a great many suffrages and lending itself to accept- 
ance without intrinsic examination. "How," say 
they " can we put faith in those philosophers ; no 
two speak in the same way " (24). All these objec- 
tions are but the scruples of small minds, incapable 
of rational discussion and only too glad of the oppor- 
tunity of stopping at those outward characteristics ; 
scruples, deserving of respect nevertheless, for they 
are honest and imply faith in the truth. To reply to 
these good and noble souls that it is a pity it should 
be so. but that after all, rationalism is not to blame 
for the inability of man to affirm so few things, that 
it is better to affirm little with certainty than to 
affirm that of which one has no legitimate knowledge, 
that if the best intellectual system were that which 
affirms most, none would be preferable to primitive 
credulity which admits everything alike without 
criticism, to reply all this to these gushing and un- 
sophisticated souls would be tantamount to arguing 
with an over excited appetite to prove that the 
craving it feels is a morbid one. One must reply 
only one thing and that one thing is the truth, 
namely, that the brevity of the creed of science is 
only so in appearance, that its contradictions are 
only contradictions in appearance, that its negative 
form is only so in appearance. Rational people con- 



46 The Future of Science. 

tradict one another because they do not treat of the 
same things, or because they treat the same things 
from a different point of view. It is certain that two 
men having had exactly the same education, having 
gone through the same studies in exactly the same 
manner would look at things exactly in the same way, 
though they might feel differently. No doubt science 
does not state its results like dogmatic theology, it 
does not count its propositions, it does not stop at a 
given number of its articles of belief. Its acquired 
truths are not ponderous theorems, ostentatiously 
"showing themselves off" for the benefit of the 
coarsest intellects. They are merely delicate per- 
ceptions, undefinable and even fugitive glimpses, 
ways of framing one's idea rather than positive data, 
ways of looking upon things absolutely undefinable ; 
science is a culture of subtlety and delicacy rather 
than a positive dogma. But the true form of moral 
truths is, in reality, such that to apply to them those 
inflexible moulds of mathematical sciences which are 
only fit for truths of another order, and acquired by 
different processes is tantamount to warping their 
method. Plato has no symbol, no definite proposi- 
tions, no fixed principles in the scholastic sense we 
attach to the word ; to attempt to extract a dogmatic 
theory from him is tantamount to warping his idea. 
Still, Plato represents a spirit; Plato is a religion. 
A spirit, that is the thing essential. The spirit is 
everything, the positive dogma is little or nothing, 
and the chances are a thousand to one on its being 
contradictory ; nay more, it must be fatally narrow, 
if it be not contradictory. A spirit does not ex- 
press itself by an analytical theory, in which every 
point of science is successively elucidated. It is 
neither by yes nor by no that it solves the delicate 
problems it puts to itself. A spirit expresses itself 
in its entirety at one and the selfsame time, it shows 
itself in twenty pages as it would show itself in a 
book ; in a book as it would show itself in a com- 
plete collection of works. There* is not a single 



The Future of Science. 47 

dialogue of Plato which is not a philosophy in itself, 
a variation on the selfsame, ever identical theme. 
The word Voltairien expresses as clearly distinct and 
as easily understood a shade as the word Cartesien ; 
nevertheless Descartes has a system and Voltaire 
has not. Descartes may be reduced to propositions, 
Voltaire cannot be so reduced. But Voltaire has a 
spirit, a way of takiDg things, the result of a whole 
ensemble of intellectual habits, Eead through the 
whole of his works and then say if it is not suf- 
ficiently characteristic, whether the man has not 
deliberately and definitely chosen his vantage point 
to depict in his own way the grand landscape, 
whether the man had not a system of life, a manner 
exclusively his own of looking at things. When, oh 
when shall we cease to be ponderous schoolmen, 
insisting upon bits of phrases in geometrical fashion 
on God, on the sonl, on morality. We will suppose 
those phrases to be as exact as possible, still they 
must be false, radically false by reason of their 
absurd attempts to define, to assign a limit to the 
infinite. I would sooner you read me a dialogue of 
Plato, a meditation of Lamartine, a page of Herder, 
a scene of "Faust." These if you like, contain a 
philosophy, that is, a way of looking at life and 
things. As for individual propositions each one 
arranges them according to his own tendencies, and 
this is the least important. But it worries small 
minds who only like formulas of two or three lines, 
easy to learn by rote. Then when they find that 
each philosopher has his own, and that all this is 
far from coinciding, they get grievously vexed in 
spirit and wondrously impatient. " It is the tower 
of Babel," they say, "each one speaks his own 
tongue. Let us go to those whose propositions 
stand better on their legs and to a creed settled once 
for all." 

When I wish to initiate young minds to the science 
of philosophy, I begin by no matter what subject, I 
speak in a certain sense and in a certain tone ; I care 



48 The Future of Science. 



little or nothing about their remembering the posi- 
tive data I give them, I do not even attempt to prove 
them, but I insinuate a certain spirit, a way, a turn ; 
then when I have inoculated them with this new 
sense, I leave thitn to search in their own way, to 
build their temple according to their own style. For 
there begins individual originality which we are 
bound to respect rigorously. The positive results 
of this order teach nothing, produce no effect, have 
no value if transmitted in that way and merely ac- 
cept id by rote. One must have been led to them, 
one must have discovered them or guessed at them 
almost before they left the lips of him who pro- 
pounded them. Positive propositions are every one's 
business ; the spirit only can be transmitted. I 
frankly admit that I do not possess an ensemble of 
settled and clearly limited propositions constituting 
a natural religion, nor do I think that science pos- 
sesses such. But there is an intellectual standpoint 
capable of being expressed in a book, not in a single 
phrase, which is in itself a religion ; there is a lofty 
and religious way of taking things, and that way is 
my way. Those who have breathed — if only once in 
their lives — the air of the unseen world, and tasted 
of the ideal nectar, they will understand me (25). 

It seems to me that it need not take long to find 
out that too great a precision in things moral is as 
unphilosophical as it is unpoetical. Every system is 
assailable by the very precision of it (26). How far 
removed, for instance, are those admirable funeral 
orations of Bossuet, in which he has commented 
upon death in such magnificent language, how far 
removed are they from that upon which our actual 
mode of feeling would insist by reason of the cramped 
and precise framework to which theology has reduced 
the ideas concerning the future life. Nowadays, we 
do not conceive an eloquent discourse over a tomb 
without a doubt expressed in it, without an attempt 
to draw the veil on what is beyond, with the mere 
expression of a hope, left in the clouds as it were, a 



The, Future of Science. 4 ( J 

less eloquent standpoint perhaps, but certainly more 
poetical and philosophical than a too definite dogma- 
tism, supplying if I may be permitted to say so, the 
map to the life to come. The savage of the Pacific 
looks upon his island as the whole of the world. 
Those who pretend to limit the lines of the infinite 
are still more foolhardy. That is why of all studies 
most brutalizing, most destructive of all poetry, 
theology is the first. 

A system means an epic on things. It would be 
as absurd for a system to contain the last word on 
reality as it would be for an epic to attempt to ex- 
haust the whole range of the beautiful. An epic is 
the more perfect in proportion as it corresponds best 
with the whole of humanity, nevertheless after the 
most perfect epic, the theme is still new and may 
lend itself to infinite variations according to the 
individual character of the poet, of the century or 
nation to which he belongs. How can one have a 
feeliog for nature, how can one unrestrictedly inhale 
the perfume of things if one only sees them in the 
narrow and moulded forms of a system. I felt this 
divinely one day on entering a small wood. But an 
unseen hand repelled me as it were, because at that 
moment I pictured nature under I know not what 
physical aspect and I only became reconciled to the 
idea by saying to myself that all this was but a trait 
seized from the infinite, a vapour on a pure sky, a 
fluting on a vast curtain. We must dismiss the 
narrow conception of the schools, looking upon the 
human mind as a machine perfectly exact and ade- 
quate to the absolute. Views, glimpses, gleams of 
light, perceptions, sensations, colours, physiognomies, 
aspects, these are the forms under which the intellect 
perceives things ('27). Geometry alone can be re- 
duced to axioms and theorems. Elsewhere the vague 
is the true view. 

The activity of human intelligence is such that 
to confine it in too narrow a circle is to force it 
into alienation. The right to think for one's self is 



50 Tlie Future of Science. 

imprescriptible, if you bar vast horizons to man, he 
will resort to subtle arguments in revenge, if you 
impose a text upon him he will escape from it by 
using it in the wrong sense. The wrong sense or 
nonsense is the revenge of the human intellect in 
periods of authority on the fetters imposed on it ; it 
is a protest against the text. This text is infallible, 
very well. But it lends itself to various interpreta- 
tions, and there begins anew the diversity, the simu- 
lacrum of freedom with which one puts up, in default 
of another. Under the regime of Aristotle, as under 
that of the Bible people were permitted to think as 
freely as they are nowadays but on the condition of 
proving that such and such a thought was really in 
Aristotle or in the Bible, which was after all, not 
very difficult. The Talmud, the Masora, the Cabbala 
are curious proofs of the capability of the human 
intellect when fettered to a text. One begins to 
count its letters, its words, its syllables, the material 
sound gets to count far more than the sense, one 
goes on multiplying the exegetical subtleties, the 
modes of interpretation, like the starving wretch who, 
after having devoured his hunk of bread, carefully 
collects the crumbs thereof. All the commentaries 
on sacred writings are like one another, from those of 
Manu to those of the Bible, from those of the Bible to 
those of the Koran. All are a protest of the human 
intellect against the enslaving tendency of literal in- 
terpretation ;■ a miserable attempt to fertilize a barren 
field. When the mind does not find an object com- 
mensurate with its activity, it is fain to create one 
by a thousand tricks. 

That wmich the human intellect is apt to do before 
a text imposed, it does before a settled dogma. Why 
were people so terribly bored in the seventeenth cen- 
tury ? Why did Madame de Maintenon die of ennui 
at Versailles ? Alas ! because there was no horizon. 
What resource is there left to the prisoner chained 
up opposite a dead wall of which he has counted the 
bricks over. and over again ? That is the very reason 



The Future of Science. 51 

why this century of orthodoxy and rule was the 
ceutury of equivocation. It is the narrow rule that 
breeds equivocation. Why is law the science of 
equivocation? Because one is cribbad and confined 
on every side by formulas ? Why was equivocation 
so universal in the Middle Ages ? Because Aristotle 
was there. Why is theology from beginning to end 
nothing more than a long-drawn subtlety ? Because 
the authority is ever present ; one rubs shoulders with 
it constantly, its uncomfortable pressure is felt at 
every moment. It is a perpetual struggle between 
liberty and the divine text. A spout of water, left 
free uprises in a straight line, compressed, confined 
it swerves and deviates. Similarly the intellect left 
free operates normally, compressed it subtilizes. 

I am convinced that if minds cultivated by the 
study of rational science were to interrogate them- 
selves, they would rind that, without formulating any 
proposition capable of being reduced to one sentence, 
they have sufficiently clear views on vital matters, 
and that these views variously expressed for every 
one come to about the selfsame thing ; only they do 
not happen to be fixed into hard and fast forms and 
settled once for all. Hence springs the individual 
shade of all philosophies, and above all of German 
philosophies. Each sj^stem is merely the way in 
which an eminent mind has looked at the world, a 
way always deeply stamped with the individuality of 
the thinker. I do not doubt that each of these 
systems assumed the shape of a very great truth in 
the brain of its author, but the very fact of their 
individuality renders them incapable of being com- 
municated and demonstrated (28). They are pure ex- 
planatory hypotheses, like those applied to physics, but 
which do not prevent the subsequent trial of others. 
We must not absolutely say that it is thus for we 
cannot have a conception adequate to primordial 
causes ; all we can say is that things happen as if 
it were thus (29). It is impossible for two well 
ordered minds to look upon the same things and to 



52 The Future of Science. 

come to a different conclusion. If the one says, 
"Yes," and the other, " No," it is evident that they 
do not speak of the same thing or that they do not 
attach the same sense to the same words (30). That 
is what Hegel meant when he averred that every 
thinker is at liberty to create the world in his own 
fashion. 

It is not surprising, then, that the orthodox man 
should be able to lock up his beliefs in a safer way 
than the philosopher. Orthodoxy puts, if I may be 
allowed to say so, the whole of its vital provision in 
a hard and resisting tube, which is an outward and 
palpable fact ; revelation, a kind of carapace that 
protects, but at the same time, makes, it heavy and 
ungraceful. The faith of the philosopher, on the 
contrary is always nude, clad in nothing but its 
simple beauty. One may fancy the temptation it 
affords to brutal outrage. But the day will come 
when the stiletto of criticism will in its turn, pierce 
the carapace of the believer and reach the human 
nature within. 

Truth, to the thinker, is only a more or less ad- 
vanced but always incomplete form, or at any rate 
a form capable of being perfected. Orthodoxy, on 
the other hand, petrified, stereotyped in its iorms, 
can never cast oft its past. Seeing that it pretends 
to have been made at one sitting and in one piece 
it places itself beyond the pale of progress, it be- 
comes rigid, overbearing, unbending, and while philo- 
sophy is always abreast with humanity, theology at 
a certain period lags behind. For it is immutable 
and humanity marches onward. Not that theology 
has not been forced to march now and then like the 
rest. But it denies this, it lies to history, it warjDS 
all criticism in order to prove that its actual state is 
its primitive one, and it is obliged to do this on the 
penalty of forfeiting the conditions of its existence. 
The philosopher on the contrary, conceives under no 
circumstances either absolute retrogression or pro- 
determined immobility. He recommends concession 



The Future of Science. 53 

to the successive modifications brought about by 
time, without ever categorically -severing one's self 
from the past any more than being its slave. He 
has no wish to deny that past, but endeavours to 
explain it in a new sense, to show the part of ill- 
defined truth it contained. There is nothing con- 
tradictory in a philosopher exceeding the limits of 
his own philosophy, in using several systems, by 
which I mean several not equally perfect expressions 
of the truth ; this simply redounds to his honour. 

The problem of philosophy is ever new, it will 
never attain a definite formula, and the day we shall 
be satisfied to abide by the assertions of the past by 
accepting them as so many absolute truths, incapable 
of reconstruction, that day will sound the death-knell 
of philosophy. The orthodox man is never more 
annoying than when, pluming himself upon his 
immobility, he twits the thinker with his fluctuations 
and philosophy with its constant modifications (31). 
It is exactly those very modifications which prove 
that philosophy is truth ; through them it is in 
harmony with human nature, always in travail and 
happily condemned to obtain all its conquests in 
the sweat of its brow. Only that which is not pro- 
gressive does not vary. There is nothing more 
motionless than the nonentity who has never lived 
the intellectual life, or the dullard who has never- 
seen aught but one side of things. The way not to 
vary is not to think. If orthodoxy is immutable it 
is simply because it has placed itself beyond the pale 
of human nature and reason. 

And I pray you not to say that this is scepticism. 
It is criticism, that is, the ultimate and transcen- 
dental discussion of what at first was admitted 
without sufficient inquiry, in order to deduce from 
it a purer and more advanced truth. It is high 
time that we should accustom ourselves to call 
sceptics all those who do not believe as yet in the 
religion of the modern spirit, and who still lingering 
around effete systems, deny with blind hatred the 



54 Tlie Future of Science. 

acquired dogmas of the living century. We accept 
the inheritance of the three great modern move- 
ments ; protestantism, philosophy and the revolution, 
without having the slightest inclination to become 
converts to the symbols of the sixteenth century, 
or Voltairians or to recommence another 1793 or 
1848. There is not the slightest need for us to 
recommence what our fathers accomplished. Their 
work is summed up in liberalism, we shall know how 
to continue that work. 

In logic, in morality, in politics man aspires to the 
attainment of something absolute. Those who base 
human knowledge, and duty and government on 
human nature appear to deprive themselves of such 
a foundation; for unhampered inquiry means dissent, 
variety of views. It seems easier, therefore, to seek 
for knowledge, morality and politics a basis outside 
man, a revelation, a right divine for instance. It is 
unfortunate that there exists nothing of the kind ; 
that such a revelation would first of all have to be 
proved, that it is not proved, and that if it were 
proved, it could only be proved by reason, that con- 
sequently diversity would uprise again with regard 
to the appreciation of those proofs. Hence, it is 
better to remain within the field of human nature, 
to look for the absolute only in science and to do 
away with all those timid palliatives which only pro- 
duce illusions and postpone the difficulty. 

Nowadays there are only two systems confronting 
one another ; one portion of humanity, despairing of 
reason, believing it to be condemned to eternal con- 
tradiction of itself, frantically embrace an outside 
authority and become believers through scepticism 
(a Jesuitical system ; authority, the director, the 
pope substituted for reason, for God). The other 
portion from a more profound view of the march of 
human intellect perceive progress and unity beneath 
apparent contradictions. But let us remember this, 
for it is essential ; unless one believes from instinct, 
like the most simple minded, one can only believe 



The Future of Science. 55 

from scepticism ; to despair of philosophy has become 
the first basis of theology. I love and admire this 
grand despairing scepticism the expression of which 
has endowed modern literature with so many admir- 
able works. But I can only laugh at and be disgusted 
with that petty irony of human nature which results 
in superstition and pretends to cure Byron by preach - 
ing the Pope to him. 

A great deal is said nowadays about the accordance 
of human reason with faith, of science with revelation, 
and some pedants who wish to make themselves in- 
teresting and to pose as impartial and superior minds 
have made this a theme full of ambiguity aDd frivo- 
lous nonsense. The principal thing is to understand 
one another. If revelation be really what it pretends 
to be, the word of God, it is but too clear that it is 
master, that it has no need to enter into a pact with 
science, that the latter can only pack up its traps 
in presence of this infallible authority, and that its 
role (that of science) would be reduced to that of 
serva et pedissequa, to comment upon or to explain 
the revealed word. From that moment also the 
custodians of this revealed word will be superior to 
the investigators of human science, or rather they 
will be the only power before which the other will 
vanish, like the human before the divine. No doubt, 
truth not admitting of self-contradiction, one would 
be bound to conclude that sound science could not 
very well contradict revelation. But seeing that 
the latter is infallible and more clear, if science 
appears to contradict it, one will conclude that it is 
not sound science and impose silence on its objections. 
But if, on the contrary, the fact of the revelation is 
not real, or if at any rate, there is nothing super- 
natural about it, then religions are nothing more 
than human creations and the whole' matter is re- 
duced to the finding of the reason for the different 
fictions of the human intellect. On such an hypothesis 
man himself has done everything by means of his 
natural faculties, in one case spontaneously and in 



56 The Future of Science. 

the dark ; in the other scientifically and reflecting^ ; 
but in sum man has done everything, he finds him- 
self everywhere face to face with his own authority 
and with his own work. The theologians are right 
when they say that before everything one should 
discuss the fact; is this doctrine the word of God? 
And whether we reply yea or nay, the so-called 
problem of the agreement between faith and reason, 
supposing as it does two equal powers which it is 
necessary to reconcile, is utterly devoid of sense ; for 
in the first case, reason vanishes in the presence 
of faith, like the finite before the infinite and the 
strictest orthodoxy has right on its side ; in the 
second case there remains nothing but reason, mani- 
festing itself in various ways, but nevertheless always 
remaining identical with itself (32). 

It is you who are the sceptics, and we are the 
believers. We believe in the work of modern days, 
in its sanctity, in its future, it is you who curse it. 
We believe in reason and you insult it ; we believe 
in humanity, in its godlike destinies, in its imperish- 
able future, and you laugh at it ; we believe in the 
dignity of man, in the goodness of his nature, in 
the rectitude of his heart, in his right to attain the 
perfect state, and you shake your head at these com- 
forting truths and you complacently lay stress on the 
evil, and the most saintlike aspirations towards a 
divine idealism, you denounce them as the works of 
Satan, and you talk of rebellion, of sin, of punish- 
ment, of expiation, of humiliation, of penitence, of 
the hangman to him who should hear no words from 
your lips save those of deification and expansion. 
We believe in everything that is true, we love every- 
thing that is beautiful (33) ; and you, wilfully blind 
to the infinite charm of things, you pass through this 
beautiful world of ours without deigning to bestow 
a smile upon it. Is the world a cemetery and life 
a funeral procession ? Instead of the reality you 
cherish an abstraction. Which of us denies, you or 
we ? And he who denies is he not the sceptic ? 



The Future of Science. 57 



Our rationalism, therefore, is not that hauteur, ana- 
lytical, dry, negative, incapable of understanding the 
things of the heart and the imagination which was 
inaugurated by the eighteenth .century ; it is not the 
exclusive use of what has been called " the acid of 
reasoning; " it is not the positive philosophy of M. 
Auguste Comte, nor the irreligious criticism of M. 
Proudhon. It is the acknowledgment of human 
nature, hallowed in all its parts, it is the simultaneous 
and harmonious use of all the faculties, it is the ex- 
clusion of all exclusiveness. According to our views 
M. de Lamartine is a rationalist, still in a more 
restricted sense, he would no doubt deny this title, 
seeing that he himself tells us that he atta ns his re- 
sults not by combination or reasoning but by instinct 
and direct intuition. Until now criticism has been 
conceived as being only a dissolving agent, an analysis 
destroying life ; from a more advanced point of view 
it will be understood that higher criticism is only 
possible on the condition of giving the whole of human 
nature full play, and that reciprocally a higher love 
and a great admiration are only possible on condition 
of criticism. The pretended poetical natures who 
imagined they could get to the true sense of things 
without science will then turn out to be so many 
chimera-mongers, and the austere savants who shall 
have neglected the more delicate gifts whether from 
scientific virtue or from a compulsory contempt of 
what they did not possess will remind us of the in- 
genious myth of the daughters of Minyas who were 
changed into bats for having been unable to do any- 
thing but argue in the presence of symbols to which 
a more generous method of elucidation should have 
been applied. 

History appears to raise an objection against 
science, criticism, rationalism, civilization — synony- 
mous terms after all — which it is expedient to ex- 
plain. It seems in fact to show us the most cul- 
tured people always a prey to the most barbarous 
people ■ Athens to Macedonia, Greece to the Eomans, 



58 The Future of Science. 

the Romans to the barbarians, the Chinese to the 
Manchoos. The process of thinking is a wearing 
one. Our middle class families which in reality have 
only been conscious of their own strength for one 
or two generations are already wearing out. The 
half-century that has elapsed since 1789 has ex- 
hausted them to a greater extent than the innumer- 
able generations of primitive darkness. Too much 
knowledge apparently weakens humanity, a people of 
philologists, thinkers and critics would probably be 
too weak to defend its own civilization. The Ger- 
many of the beginning of the century gave way dis- 
gracefully to France and yet how superior from a 
mental point of view was the Germany of Goethe and 
Kant to the France of Napoleon. Barbarism being 
unconscious of its own powers, is obedient and pas- 
sive ; the individual, unaware of his individual worth, 
is lost in the masses, and obeys the command as he 
would fate. Passive obedience is only possible on 
the condition of stupidity. The man who thinks for 
himself, on the other hand, calculates his interests 
too well and asks himself with that feeling of posi- 
tiveness which he applies to all things whether it is 
really his interest to get himself killed. Besides, he 
clings more tenaciously to life and the reason is plain 
enough. His individualism is much stronger than 
that of the barbarian, civilized man says I with un- 
paralleled energy ; with the barbarian on the con- 
trary, life is scarcely raised one degree above the level 
of the dull sensation that constitutes the life of 
the animal. He does not resist, for the reason that 
he barely exists. Hence the contempt for human 
life (for his own as well as that of others) which is 
the secret of the barbarian's heroism. The culti- 
vated man whose life has a real value, sets too much 
store by it to stake it casually (34). Brutal strength 
appears to him such an extravagant idea that he 
revolts against such absurd means and cannot make 
up his mind to pit himself against weapons which 
a savage handles better than he does. In those rude 



The Future of Science. 59 

struggles the most benighted conscience is the best ; 
personality, reflection are simply so many causes of 
inferiority. Hence, the liberty to think for one's 
self has up till now been by no means favourable to 
enterprises requiring the abdication of their individu- 
ality by masses of men in order to yoke themselves 
to the vehicle of a grand idea and to drag it majes- 
tically through the world. What would Napoleon 
have done with an army of reasoners ? 

This is a real contradiction which like so maDy 
others, cannot be cyphered away except by acknow- 
ledging that humanity is as yet far removed from its 
normal condition. While one portion of humanity 
is still leading a brutal life, misunderstanding and evil 
passions will succeed in exploiting barbarian humanity 
against civilized humanity and in letting loose the 
ferocious brute on reasonable men. The critics are 
right, whether they are the stronger or the weaker 
does not prevent them from being in the right, and 
if they fall, it simply proves that the actual condition 
of humanity is still far distant from the point when 
justice and reason will be the only real forces as 
they are the only legitimate ones. 

Bear in mind, 1 pray you, that this is not a mere 
academic question, a dream discussed in an idle hour. 
It is the question of humanity itself and the legiti- 
macy of its nature. If humanity is so constituted 
as to require necessary illusions, if too much refine- 
ment leads to dissolution and weakness, if too great 
a knowledge of the reality of things becomes in- 
jurious to it, if it wants superstitions and incomplete 
views, if the legitimate and necessary development 
of its own being prove its own degradation, then 
humanity is badly constituted, it is based on false 
foundations, it is only travelling towards its own 
destruction, because those who have conquered 
thanks to their illusions will be forcibly brought to 
their own disillusion afterwards by civilization and 
rationalism. Under such circumstances our symbol 
is destroyed, for our symbol is the legitimacy of pro- 



GO The Future of Science. 

gress. And on this hypothesis, humanity would find 
itself in a blind alley, its line of route would not be 
the straight one, proceeding towards the infinite, 
seeing that pushing forward and forward it would 
discover in the end that it had gone backward. The 
law, which in such a case one would have to enjoin 
on human nature w T ould no longer be to exert all its 
strength in the attainment of the absolute, civiliza- 
tion would have its maximum, arrived at by an equi- 
librium of opposites, and wisdom would consist in 
stopping at that. The question, in one word, comes 
to this ; the law of humanity is either an expression 
such that by increasing all its variable quantities, one 
increases the total value ; or else it must be assimi- 
lated to those expressions that attain a maximum, 
beyond which any addition brought to the several 
factors results in a decrease of the total value. 

Happy will they be who by means of a definite 
experiment will be enabled to oppose a proved answer 
to these terrible apprehensions. Our affirmations in 
that respect may perhaps possess some of the merit of 
faith which believes without having seen, and truth 
to tell, when one looks at isolated facts, optimism 
appears a very gratuitous liberality to God. As 

^for myself, if I were to see humanity collapse on its 
own foundations, mankind slaughter one another in 
some fateful darkness, if I were to see all this, I 
should still go on proclaiming the rectitude of human 
nature, that perfection is its final aim, that misunder- 
standings will disappear, and that the day must come 

v when reason and perfection shall reign supreme. 
Then we shall be remembered, and some will say ; 
" Oh, how they must have suffered." We must 
take care not to assimilate our civilization and our 
rationalism to the fictitious culture of antiquity and 
above all to that of degenerate Greece. Our eighteenth 
century was no doubt an epoch of moral depression, 
nevertheless it closed with the greatest eruption of 
devotion, of abnegation of life recorded in history. 
Those philosophers, those Girondists who so proudly 



The Future of Science. 61 

marched to the scaffold were they nothing more than 
quaking rhetoricians ? Was it a superstitious illusion 
that strengthened those noble souls ? There exists, 
I know, a generation of egotists, a generation that 
has grown up in the shadow of a prolonged peace, a 
sceptical generation, born under the star of Mercury, 
without faith or love, which at the first blush, seems 
to be governing the world. Bat even if this were so, 
we should not despair of humanity, without a doubt, 
for humanity does not die, but we should have to 
despair of France. Bat, after all, are these the men 
whom in good faith, we ought to oppose as an ob- 
jection to science and philosophy ? Is it too much 
knowledge that has taken the muscle and marrow out 
of them ? Is it too much thought that has destroyed 
all feeling of patriotism and honour in them ? Is it 
their too frequent excursions to the realms of the 
intellect that have made them unfit for great things ? 
They whose minds are closed to every idea, whose 
only science is that of a fictitious world, whose philo- 
sophy consists of frivolity. For Heaven's sake, do 
not talk to me of these men when we are discussing 
philosophy and civilization. Even if it be proved 
that the tone of the society which became more and 
more powerful under Louis-Philippe was calculated to 
hamstring all noble effort, it would be no argument 
against the society which will be brought to the front 
by reason and human nature in its frankest and truest 
development. Even if the final impotency of the 
official world were proved, if it were proved incapable 
of creating aught original and strong, it would not 
justify us in despairing of humanity, for humanity dis- 
poses of unknown sources whither it goes constantly 
to renew its youth. Is it too much rationalism that 
has ruined unhappy Italy, which at the present moment 
presents to us the deplorable spectacle of a member 
of humanity stricken with paralysis ? Is it too much 
criticism that has dried up the vessels that gave it 
life ? Was it not stronger and more beautiful in the 
fifteenth, and in the first half of the sixteenth, cen- 



02 The Future of Science. 

tunes, when it was the pioneer of the whole of Europe 
along the roads of civilization, and spread its shelter- 
ing wings over the boldest of rationalism ? Is it its 
religions beliefs that have preserved its vigour ? Was 
not the pagan Italy of Julius II. and Leo X. worth the 
exclusively Catholic Italy of Pius V. and the Council 
of Trent ? To knock down the Capitol or the Temple 
of Jupiter Stator would have been tantamount to 
overthrow Rome. Such things should no longer be 
possible among modern nations, seeing that the rest 
and be thankful in the matter of religious creeds is 
sufficient to enervate a nation (35). A few months 
ago the people of Rome cast their church bells into 
the melting pot to make coppers of them. No doubt 
if the religion of the moderns were like that of the 
ancients, the spinal marrow of the nation itself, this 
would have been a great piece of absurdity. One 
might as well profess to enrich France by converting 
the Vendome Column into money. But what are 
people to do when the gods are departed ? Sym- 
machus asking for the restoration of the altar dedi- 
cated to Victory was simply playing the rhetorician.* 
Seeing that antiquity never understood the great 
object of literary culture, having always looked upon 
it as a kind of mental drill with a view to " speaking 
well," it is not very surprising that the strong and 
energetic natures of those days should have so severely 
condemned the puerile S3 7 stem of the rhetoricians and 
the meretricious and sophistical education they im- 
parted to the young. The ideal of virtue as conceived 
by serious minded men was the rough and unculti- 
vated character and their ideal of a society consisted 
in a development exclusively tending to devotion to 
the country and well-doing (Sparta, ancient Rome, 
etc.). And seeing that literary culture was found 
to be subversive of such a state, that culture was 
denounced as offering the greater facility to the 

* Symmachus, Prefect of Rome 384 of the Christian Era, Consul 
in 391, reported to be the last adherent and advocate of Paganism 
in the West.— Traxsu 



The Future of Science. 63 

enemy to vanquish. Hence those commonplaces 
about the superiority of iv ell- doing over eloquent talk- 
ing, of rough hewn virtue over refined civilization, 
the contempt of the Grceculus, primed with grammar, 
etc. In our days all this would be so much nonsense. 
From our point of view, Sparta and ancient Eome 
represent, in fact, one of the- most imperfect con- 
ditions of humanity, seeing that one of the essential 
elements of our nature, thought, intellectual perfec- 
tion was utterly neglected there. No doubt the 
simple and genuine cultivation of the love of country 
is superior to that artificial culture of the latter days 
of the empire, and if anything could inspire one with 
fear for the future of modern civilization it would be 
the fact that the so-called classical education given to 
our young generation resembles that of that lament- 
able epoch. But there is nothiug superior to science 
and to the grand and purely human civilization, and 
it is only the superficial mind that could compare 
this grand form of complete life to the artificial 
centuries in which a man could have no noble senti- 
ment apart from a rhetorical reminiscence, when he 
sent for a philosopher to hear the reading of a Conso- 
lation when he had lost his nearest and dearest, and 
when people on their death-beds pulled from their 
pockets a speech prepared for the occasion. 

Thus, if civilization were to founder once more in 
presence of barbarism, it could not be argued as an 
objection against it. It would have right on its side 
even beyond that. It would once more vanquish its 
conquerors, and so it will be always until the day 
when there will be no longer any one to conquer, and 
when sole mistress it will reign in its own right. 
What does it matter by whom the work of civilization 
and the welfare of humanity be accomplished ? In 
the eyes of God and posterity, Russians and French 
are only so many human beings. We only appeal 
to the principle of nationality when the nation 
oppressed is superior intellectually to that which 
oppresses her. The absolute partisans of nationality 



G4 The Future of Science. 



can only be narrow-minded people. Humanitarian 
perfection is the aim, and from that point of view 
civilization is always triumphant ; and it would be 
strange indeed if an invisible weight dragged down 
humanity in that sense, if that sense meant only 
degeneration. 

From the point of view of humanity there is no 
such thiug as decline. Decline is a word that ought 
to be banished once for all from the philosophy of 
history. Where does the decline of Eome begin ? 
The narrow-minded, ever concerned with the preser- 
vation of ancient habits and customs will aver that 
it is after the Punic wars, that is, just at the very 
moment when the preliminaries having been laid 
down, Eome begins her mission and gets rid of the 
habits of her infancy, which henceforth have become 
impossible to her. Those who are preoccupied with 
the idea of the republic will place the fatal line at 
the battle of Actium ; they are the poor folk who 
would have committed suicide in company with 
Brutus ; they fancy they can see death in what was 
after all but the crisis of ripe age. Can that decline 
be placed with greater justice in the fourth century, 
when the work of Roman assimilation is at its height, 
or in the fifth, when Eome imposes her civilization on 
the barbarians that invade her ? And when we look 
at Greece from the Homeric times to the days of 
Heraclius, where is her decline ? Is it at the epoch 
of Philip, when she is on the eve of making her 
brilliant first appearance in the work of humanisation 
through Alexander ? Is it during the domination of 
Eome, when she becomes the cradle of Christianity ? 
So true is it that the word decline has no sense 
except from the narrow point of view of politics and 
nationalities, not from the grand and wide point of 
view of the work of humanisation. When atrophy 
takes hold of certain races, humanity has always 
a sufficient reserve of living forces left to make good 
such deficiencies. And it it be apprehended that 
humanity having exhausted all its reserve stock be 



The Future of Science. 65 



ouo day in the position of each nation in particular, 
my answer must he that before then humanity will 
no doubt have become stronger than all the destruc- 
tive causes put together. In our actual condition, 
criticism carried to extremes causes moral and phy- 
sical weakness, in the normal coudition science will 
become the mother of strength. Seeing that hitherto 
science has only appeared in the guise of criticism, 
it is difficult to conceive its ever becoming a powerful 
active motor. Such will be the case, nevertheless, 
the moment it has succeeded in creating in the 
moral world a conviction equal to that produced of 
yore by religious faith. All the arguments deduced 
from the past in order to prove the impotence of 
philosophy are no proofs at all with regard to the 
future, for the past has only been a necessary intro- 
duction to the grand era. Reflection has as yet not 
shown itself as a creative power. Let us wait a 
while, let us wait a while. ... 

Many of my readers will no doubt be surprised at 
my frequent appeals to the future. It is because I 
am really convinced that the majority of the argu- 
ments advanced apologetically in behalf of science 
and modern civilization are very faulty and lay them- 
selves open to the attacks of the retrogressive schools 
if they, the arguments, are to be considered by them- 
selves and irrespective of the ulterior condition of 
things to which they will have contributed. The 
only means of understanding and justifying the 
modern spirit is to look upon it as a necessary 
stage towards the perfect, in other words, towards 
the future. And this appeal is not the mere act of 
blind faith which falls back upon the unknown. It 
is the legitimate result emanating from the whole of 
the history of the human intellect. " Hope," says 
George Sand, "is the faith of this century." 

Side by side with theological dogmatism which 
makes science useless and robs it of its dignity we 
must place another dogmatism, still more narrow and 
more absolute, that of superficial common sense, 

F 



fi6 Tlie Future of Science. 



which in reality is only so much self-sufficiency and 
emptiness, and which not perceiving the difficulties 
of problems, thinks it strange that their solution 
should be looked for outside the beaten track. It is 
too evident that the common sense in question is 
not that resulting from straightforward action of the 
human faculties on a sufficiently well-known subject. 
The one I am tiltiDg against is a somewhat rather 
equivocal quality the exclusive possession of which 
small minds claim for themselves and which they 
liberally grant to those who agree with them, the 
subtle triviality which succeeds in investing every- 
thing with an appearance of evidence. Now, it is very 
evident that common sense, thus understood, cannot 
make up for science in its search for truth. First of 
all, let us remember that the superficial minds who 
are constantly appealing to common sense designate 
by that name the very special and very limited form 
of customs and habits under which they happen to 
have been born. Their common sense is the way of 
looking at things of their century or of their province. 
Only he who has systematically compared the various 
facets of humanity would have the right to make 
this appeal to universal opinions. Besides is it 
common sense which will give me philosophical, 
historical, philological knowledge, all of which are 
necessary for the criticism of the most important 
truths ? Common sense has every right to speak 
when it comes to establishing the bases of morality 
and psychology, seeing that in that case it is only 
necessary to note that which appertains to human 
nature, which should only be looked for in its general, 
consequently in its most commonplace expression, 
but common sense is only ponderous and clumsy 
when it pretends to solve by itself problems, to the 
elucidation of which divination is more essential 
than sight, in connection with which one has to 
catch a thousand shades almost imperceptible, to 
pursue hidden and secret analogies. Common sense 
is partial ; it always looks at its opinion from the 



TJie Future of Science. 67 

inside, it never emerges from it to judge it from the 
outside. It so happens, however, that nearly every 
opinion is true in itself, but only relatively true with 
regard to the point of view whence it is conceived. 
The really true in moral and historical sciences 
appeals to subtle and refined intellects only, the same 
that mathematics appeal to the systematic intellect 
only. The truths of criticism do not lie on its surface, 
they almost look like paradoxes, they do not plant 
themselves, visible from all sides before the ordinary 
understanding like theorems of geometry, they are 
fugitive flashes of which the eye just catches a 
glimpse, which one perceives in an absolutely indi- 
vidual way, and which it becomes almost impossible 
to communicate to others. The only resource left is 
to bring the other minds to the same point of view 
in order to show them thing's from the same side. 
What business has this vulgar common sense, with 
its blustering ways, loud voice and self-satisfied 
laughter in that world of finesse and subtle thought ? 
I can make neither head nor tail of it is its last and 
sovereign sentence, and how very easy indeed is it 
to say that much. The self-sufficient tone it assumes 
when face to face with the results of science and 
thought is one of the most aggravating nuisances 
the thinker has to contend with. It unhinges him, 
and if he be not a philosopher at heart, he cannot 
help getting annoyed with those who abuse their 
privilege in that way against his delicate and feeble 
voice. 

Hence it is inadmissible to appeal from science 
to common sense, seeing that science is only en- 
lightened common sense operating knowingly. The 
really true is no doubt the voice of human nature, 
but of nature fittingly developed and brought by 
culture to its utmost capacity. 



68 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Science has no enemies save those who consider truth 
as useless and making no difference, and those who 
granting to truth its priceless value profess to get at 
it by other roads than those of criticism and rational 
investigation. The latter are, no doubt to be pitied 
as having strayed from the right method of the 
human intellect, but they at any rate recognize the 
ideal aim of life ; they may come to an understand- 
ing and to a certain extent sympathize with the man 
of science. As for those who despise science as they 
despise lofty poetry, as they despise virtue, because 
their degraded soul only understands the perishable, 
we have nothing to say to them. They belong to 
another world, they do not deserve the name of men, 
seeing that they are without the faculty which con- 
stitutes the noble prerogative of humanity. We are 
rather proud that they should look upon us as men 
of another age, as fools and dreamers, we glory in 
knowing the routine of life less well than they do, 
we delight in proclaiming our studies to be useless; 
their contempt for them makes them valuable to us. 
These men are the immoral ones, the atheists who 
are impervious to every breath coming from on high. 
The atheist is the indifferent, the superficial and 
frivolous who has no cult save that of interest and 
self-gratification. England to all appearance one of 
the most religious countries of the world is in fact 
the most atheistic ; for it is the least ideal. Unlike 
some of the Latin orators I do not wish to fall into 



The Future of Science. 69 



the convicium saeculi. I believe that there exist in 
the souls of the nineteenth century just as many 
intellectual needs as in those of any other epoch, and 
am convinced that at no time were there so many 
minds open to criticism. The misfortune is that 
the prevailing frivolity condemns them to form a 
world apart, and that the aristocracy of the century, 
which is that of wealth, has as a rule lost the ideal 
sense of life. I am only speaking conjecturally ; for 
that world is utterly unknown to me and it would he 
easier to me to quote illustrious exceptions than ex- 
actly point out those at whom in this instance my 
reproach is aimed. Nevertheless it seems to me that 
a society which de facto only encourages a wretched 
literature in which everything is reduced to measure 
and adjustment, that a society which finds no middle 
course between an absence of moral ideas and a reli- 
gion which, it has first "boned" to make it more 
acceptable, that such a society, I repeat, is far from 
the true and grand sentiments of humanity. The 
future is with those who taking life seriously, come 
back to the eternal foundation of truth, that is to 
human nature, taken in the mass and not in its 
extreme refinements. For humanity will always be 
serious, believing, religious and the frivolity which 
believes in nothing will never hold the foremost place 
in human affairs. 

It seems to me that we ought not to attach too 
much importance to all that speechifying which has 
become trite against the utilitarian and realistic ten- 
dencies of our days, and if aught could prove the 
lack of sincerity of those lamentations it would be 
the strange resignation with which those who utter 
them submit to the inevitable necessities of the cen- 
tury. In fact nearly all seem disposed to wind up 
with the line : 

" The good old time, the iron age." 

Whatever one's opinion may be with regard to the 
tendencies of the century, it would at any rate be 



70 The Future of Science. 

fair to admit that, the sum total of activity having 
increased there may have been increment on the one 
side, without a falling off on the other. It cannot 
be disputed that there is more commercial and in- 
dustrial activity in our days then there was, for in- 
stance, in the tenth century. And must we there- 
fore conclude that the latter was better endowed 
in respect of intellectual activity ? 

There is a kind of optical illusion in history which 
is very dangerous. The actual century is always seen 
through a cloud of dust raised by the whirl of real 
life and one can scarcely distinguish amidst this 
whirlwind the pure and beautiful forms of the ideal. 
On the other hand, this cloud of petty interests 
having vanished from before the past, it appears to 
us grave, severe, disinterested. Looking at it by 
means of its books and monuments only, in other 
words, in the manifestation of its thought, we are 
tempted to believe that people did nothing else but 
think. The noise of the street, the stir of the mart 
do not come down to posterity. When the future 
shall see us freed from that deafening tumult, it 
will judge us as we judge the past. The race of 
egoists who have no feeling either for art, science or 
morality is "of all times." But they die without 
leaving a trace, they have no place in that grand 
piece of historical tapestry-work which humanity 
weaves and leaves to be unrolled behind it. They 
are the noisy waves that plash beneath the paddle 
wheels of the steamer in its course, but become 
silent behind it. 

Therefore, let those who dread to see the efforts 
of the mind stifled by material preoccupations take 
heart. Intellectual culture, speculative research, in 
one word, science and philosophy possess the best of 
all guarantees, I mean, the needs of human nature 
itself. Man will never live by bread alone ; the dis- 
interested pursuit of the true, the beautiful and the 
good, the realization of science, of art, of morality is 
as imperative a want to him as the need of satisfying 



TJie Future of Science. 71 

his hunger and his thirst. Besides, the activity, the 
apparent aim of which is only material improvement 
has nearly always an intellectual value. What 
speculative discovery has affected civilization as 
much as the discovery of steam ? A railway does 
more for human progress than a work of genius, 
which, from purely extraneous circumstances may be 
deprived of its influence. 

It cannot be denied that Christianity has done a 
great wrong to humanity in representing the actual 
life as a matter of no moment and consequently dis- 
suading man from the idea of improving it. For 
though "it is the spirit that quickeneth," and "the 
flesh proflteth nothing," the grand reign of the spirit 
will not commence until the material world shall be 
completely under man's control. Besides, the actual 
life is the stage of that perfect life which Christianity 
relegated to the world beyond. There is nothing 
exaggerated in the spiritualism of the Gospel nor in 
the exclusive preponderance it gives to a higher life. 
But it is here below and not in a fantastic heaven 
that this life will be realized. It is essential there- 
fore that man should commence by assuming the 
mastership of the bodily world in order to be at 
liberty afterwards for the victories of the spirit. 
That is where the injustice lies of the anathema 
flung by Christianity against the present life. All the 
£reat material and social improvements of this life 
have been accomplished outside Christianity and 
have even been prejudicial to it. Hence the annoy- 
ance of the actual representatives of Catholicism at 
all the most rational reforms of the abuses of the 
pist, judicial reforms, penal reforms, etc. They are 
well aware that all this hangs together, and that one 
step on that road necessarily entails all the rest. 
Posterity will, no doubt, not wholly approve our 
materialistic tendencies. It will, no doubt, judge 
our work as we judge that of Christianity and find it 
equally one-sided. But it will at any rate admit 
that unconsciously we have laid down the condition 



72 The Future of Science. 

of future progress, and that our " industrialism " has 
been, with regard to its results, a holy and meritorious 
work. 

A certain number of social doctrines are often 
taunted with concerning themselves solely with 
material interests, with the supposition that there 
exists only one kind of work for man and one kind of 
food, with the ideal conception of an easy life for all. 
This is unfortunately the case, nevertheless, one is 
hound to observe that if those systems could really 
bring about the material improvement of a consider- 
able portion of humanity the reproach would not hold 
water. Because the improvement of the material con- 
dition is the necessary condition of moral and intel- 
lectual improvement, and that item of progress will 
like every other have to be accomplished by a special 
work ; humanity cannot do two things at once. It is 
evident that a man who has not the necessities of 
life, or in order to procure them is compelled to 
devote himself to some kind of mechanical labour 
every minute of the day is forcibly condemned to 
dependence and utter insignificance. At the present 
period, the most signal service one could render to 
the human intellect would be to discover a system 
which would insure material comfort to every one. 
The human intellect will only be free when com- 
pletely emancipated from those material needs that 
humiliate it and obstruct its development. Such 
improvements possess no ideal value in themselves, 
but they are the essential condition of the dignity of 
humankind and the perfection of the individual. 
That protracted labour by which the middle classes 
managed to accumulate wealth during the whole of 
the Middle Ages is apparently something sufficiently 
vulgar. We cease to look at it in that way by re- 
flecting that the whole of modern civilization which 
is the work of the trading classes would have been 
impossible without it. The secularization of science 
could only be accomplished by an independent, 
consequently a well-to-do class, If the urban popu- 



Tlie future of Science. 73 

lations had remained poor or fettered by incessant 
manual labour like the peasant, science would be 
up to this day, the monopoly of the priestly class. 
Everything that contributes to the progress of 
humanity, however humble and commonplace it 
may appear, is by the very fact entitled to respect 
and sacred. 

It is odd that the two classes which nowadays have 
divided French society between them fling recipro- 
cally the charge of materialism. In common fairness 
we are bound to say that the materialism of the 
opulent class only is blamable. The striving of the 
poorer classes after material welfare is just, legitimate 
and sacred, seeing that the poorer classes cannot 
attain real holiness, by which I mean moral and 
intellectual perfection unless they acquire a certain 
degree of material welfare. When a well-to-do man 
fitill seeks after greater wealth, he does a thing which 
to say the least is profane, seeing that his only aim 
can be indulgence of self. But when a poor wretch 
strives to lift himself above want he attempts a vir- 
tuous task, for he tries to carry out the condition of 
his redemption. He does the right thing at the 
right moment. When Cleanthes spent his nights in 
drawing water he did as saintly a work as when he 
spent his days in listening to Zeno. I cannot help 
getting angry whenever I hear the fortunate ones of 
the century stigmatize the feeling with which the 
proletarian looks upon the more distinguished exist- 
ence of the superior classes as one of vile jealousy 
and disgraceful lust. You think it disgraceful that 
they should desire that which you enjoy. You would 
preach to the people monastic confinement and 
abstinence from all pleasure, when pleasure is the 
alpha and omega of your life, when you have poets 
who sing of nothing else. If the life is a good one, 
why should not they desire to lead it also ? If it is 
bad, why do you enjoy it ? 

The tendency towards material improvements is 
therefore far from prejudicial to the progress of the 



74 The Future of Science. 



human intellect provided it be fittingly ordained to 
its end. That which debases and degrades is the 
mean spirit brought to bear upon it ; the petty com- 
binations, the shabby processes resorted to in the 
race for wealth. I honestly believe that it would be 
better to leave the people to their poverty than to 
educate them in that way. Ignorant and unculti- 
vated, they blindly aspire to the ideal by virtue of 
the powerful and inarticulate instinct of human 
nature, they are energetic and true like all great 
masses whose consciousness is still benighted. In- 
spire them with those paltry instincts of lucre and 
you lower them, you destroy their originality without 
making them more moral or educated. The science 
of Bonhomme Richard has always seemed to me a 
sufficiently bad science. Just fancy a man who sums 
up his life in the words ; to make a fortune honestly ; 
(and even then there is a suspicion that honestly is 
only recommended in order the better to make the 
fortune) the last thing of which one needs to think, 
a thing of no value save as a means to an ulterior 
and ideal end. This is immoral, this is a narrow and 
finite conception of existence ; this can only proceed 
from a soul void of religion and poetry (36). Great 
Heavens, what is the good, I ask you, what is the 
good of having realized at the termination of the 
short life of ours the more or less complete type of 
outward happiness ? What is better is to have 
thought and loved a good deal, to have cast a 
resolute glance at all things, to be able to criticize 
death itself while on one's death-bed. I prefer a 
Jogui, I prefer an Indian Mouni, nay Simon Stylites 
himself gnawed at by the worms on his strange 
pedestal to a prosaic trader capable of pursuing for 
a score of years the one selfsame idea of wealth. 

Ye heroes of the disinterested life, saints, apostles, 
cenobites, ascetics of all epochs, sublime poets and 
philosophers who preferred to have no inheritance 
here below ; sages who went through life having the 
left eye fixed on earth, the right on Heaven, and 



Hie Future of Science. 75 

above all you, godlike Spinoza who remained poor 
and forgotten for the sake of cultivating your idea 
and in order the Letter to worship the infinite, how 
much better did you understand life than those who 
treat it as a narrow calculation of interest, as an 
insignificant struggle of ambition and vanity. Better 
would it have been, no doubt, not to have put your 
God in so remote an abstract, not to have placed Him 
on such a nebulous height where to contemplate Him 
you were compelled to take up so uncomfortable 
a position. God is not only in Heaven, He is near 
every one of us ; He is in every flower you crush 
beneath your feet, in the breath that wafts its odour 
over you, in that small life which buzzes and mur- 
murs everywhere around you, in your heart above 
all. How much more proof of the needs and the 
extremely sensitive instincts of humanity do I find 
in your sublime madness than in those colourless 
existences never lighted up by a single ray of the 
ideal, of those existences which from their first to 
their last moments have proceeded day by day, exact, 
ruled like the leaves of a counter ledger. 

Certainly we ought not to regret seeing the peoples 
pass from spontaneous, blind aspiration to clear 
and well considered perception, but it must be on 
the condition that the object proposed to this 
thoughtful consideration be not unworthy to occupy 
it. The tendency which at certain epochs of civili- 
zation impels certain minds to be smitten with 
admiration of barbaric and original peoples is a 
logical and in a sense a legitimate one. For the 
barbarian with his dreams and his fables is better 
than the positive man who understanding stops at 
the finite. Perfection would be the aspiration to- 
wards the ideal, that is religion, not operating in the 
world of chimeras and fantastic creations, but in that 
of the reality. Until we have got to understand that 
the ideal is near every one of us we shall not be 
able to prevent certain natures (and these the most 
beautifully constituted ones) from seeking it beyond 



The Future of Science. 



the vulgar existence, and finding their delight in 
asceticism. The sceptic and the frivolous minded 
may shrug their shoulders as much as they like and 
as long as they like at the folly of those beautiful 
natures, it will make no difference to them. Re- 
ligious and pure natures understand them, the philo- 
sopher admires them, like every energetic manifesta- 
tion of a real need which mistakes its road for want 
of criticism and rationalism. 

Nothing is easier with our positive spirit than to 
point out the absurdity of all the sacrifices a man 
makes of his welfare in obedience to the suprasen- 
sible. To the realist the man on his knees before the 
invisible looks uncommonly like an imbecile, and if 
antique libations were still in usage (87), there are 
many people who would say with the apostles ; 
TJt quid perclitio hcec ? Why waste this liquor thus ? 
You would have done better to drink or to sell it, 
which might have given you pleasure or profit, than 
to sacrifice it to •the invisible. Saint-Eulalia fasci- 
nated by the charm of asceticism escapes from the 
paternal home, takes the first road she comes to, 
wanders about at haphazard, gets lost in the bogs 
and cuts her feet in the brambles. "The girl was 
mad ; " I hear people say. You may call her mad, 
as long as you like, I would give everything I pos- 
sess to have seen her at that moment. Our judg- 
ments on a life of asceticism all start from the same 
principle ; the ascetic sacrifices himself to the use- 
less ; hence he is absurd. Or else, if an apology for 
the life is attempted, it will be solely for the material 
services it has been able to render accidentally, 
"without the consideration that those services were 
utterly foreign to its aim, and that those works that 
are accounted a title to glory, had no value attached 
to them, save in so far as they contributed to his 
asceticism. Assuredly he who would embrace a 
useless life, not from the need of contemplation but 
simply for the sake of idleness (and this was what 
happened during the degeneracy of the institution) 



The Future of Science. 77 

would be thoroughly contemptible. As for pure 
asceticism, it will always remain, like the pyramids, 
one of those grand monuments of the inmost needs 
of man, manifesting themselves with energy and 
grandeur, but with too little conscience and reason. 
The principle of asceticism is eternal in humanity, 
the progress of thought will impart to it a more 
rational direction (38). The ascetic of the future 
will not be the Trappisfc monk, one of the most 
imperfect types of man, he will be the lover of the 
purely beautiful, sacrificing to this dear ideal all the 
personal needs of the lower life. 

The English have imagined that they were further- 
ing the cause of sacred morality by prohibiting in 
India the processions stained with the blood of 
voluntary sacrifices, the suttee. A strange mistake 
indeed. Do you really believe that the fanatic who 
joyfully lays down his head under the wheels of the 
car of Juggernauth is not happier and more beautiful 
than you, insipid merchants. Do not you think that 
he honours human nature more by attesting — in an 
irrational, but none the less powerful manner, no 
doubt— that man has within him instincts superior 
to all the cravings for the finite and the love of self. 
Undoubtedly if we looked upon those acts as the 
mere sacrifice to a chimerical deity, they would be 
simply absurd. But we look upon them as the 
fascination which the infinite exercises on man, as 
impersonal enthusiasm, the cult of the suprasensible. 
And it is upon those magnificent outbursts of the 
grand instincts of human nature that you would 
impose limits, with your paltry morality and your 
narrow common sense. ... In those sublime and 
picturesque exaggerations of human nature there is 
a foolhardiness, a spontaneousness which the healthy 
and regular exercise of reason, do what it will, will 
never equal, and which the poet and the artist will 
always prefer (39). A morbid and exclusive develop- 
ment is more original and shows in greater relief the 
energy of nature, like an injected vein which stands 



73 Tlie Future of Science. 

out more clearly to the inspection of the anatomist. 
Go and have a look in the Louvre at the marvellous 
Spanish collection; it is ecstasy and the superhuman 
incarnated j saints whose feet scarcely touch earth ; 
virgins with necks craned, haggard eyes, staring into 
space, martyrs who wrench their hearts from their 
bodies or lacerate themselves, monks undergoing all 
kinds of self torture, etc. Well, I love those monks 
of Ribeira and Zurbaran, without which one would 
fail to understand the Inquisition. It is the moral 
force of man exaggerated, off the track, but original 
and bold in its excess. The apostle is certainly not 
the pure type of humanity, nevertheless, where shall 
we find a more powerful manifestation for the psycho- 
logist from which to study the inmost energy of 
human nature and its divine outbursts ? 

We must make due allowance for everything. 
Some of the charges preferred against the middle 
class civilization by the adversaries of the modern 
spirit are unquestionably true. The Middle Ages 
which assuredly understood the reality of life less 
well than we do, understood in some respects the 
suprasensible life better than we do. The error of 
the neo-feudal school lies in its non-perception of the 
fact that the faults of modern society are necessary 
to its character of transition, that these faults arise 
from a perfectly legitimate tendency operating under 
an exclusive and partial form. And this very partial 
form is also necessary ; for it is one of humanity's 
laws that it must proceed with its phases the one 
after the other, and in setting aside temporarily all 
the rest ; whence arises the incomplete appearance 
of all its successive developments. 

If aught could inspire doubt in the mind of the 
thinker with regard to the future of reason, it would 
no doubt be the absence of grand originality and the 
small initiative displayed by humanity as it proceeds 
on its roads of reflection. When we compare the 
timid works brought forth with so much travail by 
our reasoning age with the sublime creations en- 



The Future of Science. 79 

gendered by primitive spontaneity, engendered with- 
out so much as a feeling of their difficulty ; when we 
ponder the strange facts which must have taken 
possession of men's consciences in orde** to create a 
generation of martyrs and apostles, we might be 
tempted to regret that man has ceased to be instinc- 
tive in order to become rational. But we are com- 
forted with the thought that if his inward potentiality 
has diminished, his creation has become much more 
personal, that he is much more the master of his 
own work, that he is its author by virtue of a more 
lofty title; with the thought in sum that the actual 
condition of things is only a painful, difficult condi- 
tion, full of effort and hard striving through which 
the human intellect will have had to pass towards a 
superior state ; with the thought that the progress of 
the rational state will bring about another phase, in 
which the intellect will be once more the creator, 
but freely and with more conscience of its work. It 
is no doubt very sad for the man of intellect to have 
to pass through those ages of "little faith," to see 
sacred things railed at by the profane and to be 
exposed to the insulting laughter of triumphant 
frivolity. But it matters not ; he is the custodian 
of the sacred deposit, he is the standard bearer of 
the future, he is man in the grand and extended 
signification of the word. And he knows it, hence 
his joy and his sadness ; his sadness because he is 
permeated with the love of the perfect, it grieves him 
to think that so many consciences should for ever be 
closed to it ; his joy, because he knows that the 
mainsprings of humanity never wear out ; that, 
though momentarily overcome with sleep, they are 
there nevertheless, deep down his inmost being and 
that one day they will wake up to astonish by their 
proud originality and their invincible energy both 
their timid apologists and their insolent despisers. 

Let us suppose for a moment that a thought as 
original, as powerful as that of Christianity were to 
appear to-day. At the first glance it looks as if it 



80 Tlie Future of Science. 

would make no headway at all. Selfishness is domi- 
nant, the sense of grand devotion and of disinterested 
apostleship is lost. The century seems to obey two 
motives only ; fear and interest. At such a spectacle 
a deep sadness comes over the soul. It is all over 
then ? We must bid farewell to great things ; noble 
thoughts will have no existence save in the recollec- 
tions of the orator ; religion will no longer be aught 
but a check in the hands of the frightened wealthier 
classes. The sea of ice is for ever spreading and 
getting more solid. Who shall be able to break 
through it ? 

Timid friends who thus despair of humanity, let us 
go back together eighteen hundred years. Fancy 
that you are living at that period when a handful of 
obscure men founded in the East the dogma which 
since then has governed humanity. Cast a glance 
at the contemptible world that obeyed Tiberius, and 
tell me whether the world is really dead. Chant once 
more the funeral hymn of humanity ; for humanity 
is no more, its heart is still in the cold grip of death. 
How are these poor enthusiasts to endow it with life 
once more ; how, without a lever, can they uplift 
a world ? Well, they have done it nevertheless ; 
three hundred years later the new dogma was master, 
and four hundred years after that it became tyrant 
in its turn. 

This is our triumphant reply. The condition of 
humanity will never be so desperate as to preclude 
us from saying ; " Many a time it was believed to be 
dead. The gravestone seemed fastened down for 
ever, and the third day it uprose from the dead." 



Tlie Future of Science. 



CHAPTER V. 

It is not altogether inadvertently that I designate 
by the name of science that which is generally called 
'philosophy . To philosophize is the word by which 
I would most willingly sum up my life ; nevertheless, 
seeing that the popular use of the word only ex- 
presses a still partial form of the inner life, that, 
besides, it only implies the subjective fact of the 
solitary thinker we must employ the more objective 
word ; to know when assuming the standpoint of 
humanity. Yes, the day will come when humanity 
will no longer believe ; but when it shall know ; the 
day when it shall know the metaphysical and moral 
world as it already knows the physical ; the day 
when the government of humanity will no longer be 
given to accident and intrigue, but to the rational dis- 
cussion as to what is best, and to the most efficacious 
means of attaining that best. If such be the aim of 
science, if its object be to teach man its final aim 
and its law, to make him grasp the true sense of life, 
to make up, with art, poetry and virtue the divine 
ideal which alone lends worth to human existence, 
if such be its aim, then is it possible that it should 
have its serious detractors ? 

" But," it will be asked, " will science accomplish 
these marvellous destinies ? " All I know is this, 
that if science does not accomplish them, nothing 
else will, and that humanity will for ever be ignorant 
of the significance of things ; for science is the only 
legitimate means of knowing, and that if it has been 

G 



82 The Future of Science. 



possible for the religions to exercise a salutary in- 
fluence on the march of humanity it is solely because 
science was obscurely mixed up with them, that is 
to say, the regular exercise of the human intellect. 

If we were to confine ourselves to what science 
has done hitherto without considering the future we 
might well ask ourselves whether it will ever carry 
out this programme, whether it will succeed in pro- 
viding humanity with a symbol comparable to that of 
the religions. Up till now science has done little else 
but destroy. Applied to nature itself, it has destroyed 
its mystery and its charm by showing mathematical 
forces there where the popular imagination saw life, 
moral expression and liberty. Applied to the history 
of the human intellect, it has destroyed those poetical 
superstitions of privilsged individuals, in the admira- 
tion of which semi-science took so great a delight. 
Applied to moral things it has destroyed the com- 
forting beliefs which nothing can replace in the heart 
that was at rest in them. Where is the man who 
after having given himself up to science with all his 
heart has not cursed the day when thought became 
his birthright, who has not hankered after some fond, 
lost illusion ? As for me, I admit having often been 
torn with regret ; yes, there were days when I still 
wished to be at rest with the simple-minded, when 
I should have felt annoyed with criticism and ration- 
alism, if it were possible to be annoyed with fate. 
The first feeling of him who deserts the ranks of 
naive belief for those of critical investigation, is that 
of regret and almost anathema againsb that inflexible 
power, which from the moment it seizes upon him, 
compels him to accompany it through every stage of 
its irresistible march, until the final goal where one 
stops to weep (40). Unhappy like the Cassandra of 
Schiller through having seen too much of the reality, 
he is almost tempted to exclaim, " Restore me to my 
blindness." But are we to conclude from this that 
science is only fit to take the colour out of life, and 
to destroy. beautiful dreams ? 



The Future of Science. 83 



Let me first of all frankly admit that if such be 
the case, it is an evil beyond remedy, necessary and 
for which we should blame no one. If there be 
aught fatal on earth, it is reason and science. It is 
useless to grumble at it and to get impatient, and the 
anger of the orthodox folk against the freethinkers 
really makes one laugh ; because it looks as if the 
latter had really had it in their power to develop 
themselves in a different fashion, as if a man were 
free to believe what he likes. It is impossible to pre- 
vent reason from taking up every object of belief, 
and all these objects lending themselves to criticism, 
reason is fatally bound to declare that they do not 
constitute absolute truth. There is not a single link 
in this chain which one was free to shake off for a 
single moment; the only culprit in the matter is 



human nature and its legitimate evolution. And the 
unquestionable principle is that human nature is 
without reproach and proceeds towards the perfect by 
means of forms successively and diversely imperfect. 
The fact is that science will only have destroyed 
the dreams of the past to put in their stead a reality 
a thousand times superior. If science were to remain 
what it is we should have to submit to it while cursing 
it, for it has destroyed and not builded up again; it has 
awakened man from a sweet sleep, without smoothing 
the reality to him. What science gives me is not 
enough, I am still hungry. If I believed in any re- 
ligion, my faith, I admit, would have the greater 
wherewithal to satisfy its hunger, but a small 
modicum of good science is better than a great deal 
of haphazard science. If we had to admit literally 
all that legend-mongers and chroniclers tell us about 
the origin of peoples and religions we should know a 
great deal more about them than with the system 
of Niebuhr and Strauss. The ancient history of 
the East in its ascertained facts might be reduced 
to a few pages : if we were to put our faith in 
Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Greek histories, etc., 
we should have a library full. Folk with whom the 



84 The Future of Science. 

craving to believe is very developed may afford them- 
selves the pleasure of swallowing all that. The 
critical intellect is the sober man, or if you like, the 
fastidious man ; he makes sure above all and before- 
hand, of the quality. He prefers abstention to in- 
discriminate acceptance, he prefers truth to himself, 
and sacrifices his most lovely dreams to it. Think 
you then that it would not be much more pleasant to 
us to sing in the temple with the women or to dream 
with the children than to be pursuing on those in- 
hospitable mountains a truth which is for ever fleeing. 
Do not, therefore, twit us with knowing so very few 
things, for you, you hnow nothing at all. The little 
we do know is at any rate perfectly acquired and will 
ever go on increasing. Our guarantee is the most 
invincible of inductions, derived from the example 
of the sciences of nature. 

"If," as Burke maintains, "our ignorance of the 
things of nature, is the principal cause of our admira- 
tion of them, if this ignorance became to us the 
source of the feeling for the sublime," we might ask 
ourselves whether modern science by rending the 
veil that hid from us the forces and the agents of 
physical phenomena, and by showing us everywhere 
a regularity subject to mathematical laws and con- 
sequently devoid of mystery, has furthered the con- 
templation of the universe, been of service to assthe- 
ticism, while furthering at the same time the know- 
ledge of truth. The patient investigations of the 
observer, the figures accumulated by the astronomer, 
the long enumerations of the naturalist are scarcely 
calculated to awaken the sense of the beautiful, but 
the genuinely beautiful, that which is not based upon 
fictions of human fantasy is hidden in the results of 
analysis. To dissect a human body is to destroy its 
beauty, and still by means of this dissection, science 
arrives at the recognition of a much superior order 
of beauty, which superficial examination would not 
have as much as suspected. No doubt the enchanted 
world in which humanity dwelt previous to its 



Tlie Future of Science. 



entrance upon life guided by thought, the world 
conceived as being moral, replete with passion, life, 
and sentiment, that world possessed an ineffable 
charm ; and it is likely that face to face with that 
inflexible and severe nature created for us by ration- 
alism, some may be tempted to regret the miracle 
and to reproach scientific experiments with having 
banished it from the universe. But such a reproach 
could only be based upon an incomplete view of the 
results of science. For the real world revealed to us 
by science is by far superior to the fantastic world 
created by the imagination. If the human intellect 
had been challenged to conceive the most surprising 
marvels, if the limits which realisation imposes on 
the ideal had been knocked down in favour of the 
human intellect, if all this had been done even then 
it would not have dared to conceive a thousandth 
part of the splendours revealed by observation. We 
may go on inflating our conceptions as long as we 
like, we only bring forth atoms at the expense of the 
reality of things. Is it not a strange fact that all 
the ideas which primitive science had formed on the 
world appear narrow, trivial, and ridiculous to us after 
that which has been proved to be true. The earth 
resembling a disc, a column, a cone, the sun as big 
as the Peloponnesus, or else conceived to be a 
meteor, lighting itself every day, the stars trundling 
about at a few leagues distance on a solid vault, 
concentric spheres, a universe closed, stifling, walls, a 
narrow hemisphere against which the instinct of the 
infinite is shattered (41), these were some of the 
most brilliant hypotheses at which the human 
intellect had arrived. Beyond these, truly, was the 
world of angels with its everlasting splendour ; but 
even there what narrow limits, what finite concep- 
tions. Has not the temple of our God become 
enlarged since science has revealed to us the infinity 
of worlds ? And still people were free then to create 
marvels ; there was plenty of stuff to cut from and to 
spare, if I may so express it ; observation placed no 



8G Tlie Future of Science. 

check on fantasy ; but it was the experimental 
method which many delight in representing as 
narrow and without idealism which had the honour 
of revealing to us not that metaphysical infinite the 
idea of which is the foundation itself of man's reason, 
but that real infinite which he never attaius in his 
boldest flights of fancy. Hence, we may fearlessly 
contend that if the marvellous in fiction has up till 
now seemed necessary to poetry, the marvellous in 
nature, when it shall be unveiled in all its splendour 
will constitute a poetry a thousand times more 
sublime, a poetry which will be reality itself, which 
will be science and philosophy at the same time. If 
the experimental knowledge of the physical universe 
has exceeded by far the dreams of imagination, 
are we not justified in believing that the human 
intellect by investigating more and more closely 
the metaphysical and moral sphere and applying its 
severest method to it without any consideration for 
chimeras and desirable dreams — if there be such, are 
we not justified in believiug that by doing this it will 
simply shatter a narrow and paltry world to open 
another world of infinite marvels? Who knows but 
what our metaphysics and theology are not to those 
to be one day revealed by rational science as the 
Cosmos of Anaximenes or Indicopleustes to the 
Cosmos of Herschel and Humboldt. 

The above consideration, it appears to me, is as 
eminently calculated to reassure us on the future 
and eventual results of science, as to justify all bold- 
ness and to condemn all timid restriction. However 
destructive a criticism may seem, we should give it 
free scope, provided it be really scientific; salvation 
never comes by going backward. It is, first of all 
too evident that the very consciousness of having 
retreated before the salutary method, and the 
permanent sentiment of a fictitious objection would 
cast over the whole of ulterior existence a scepticism 
more distressing than denial itself. We must either 
neA T er discuss at all, or discuss to the end. Besides, 



The Future of Science. 87 

it is certain that the true moral system of things is 
infinitely superior to the wretched hypotheses over- 
topplecl by severe reasoning, that one day science will 
unfold a reality a thousand times more beautiful, and 
that criticism in that way will have been a first step 
in the direction of beliefs more comforting than those 
which it seems to destroy. Yes, if I were to see all 
the truths constituting what is called natural religion, 
a personal God, Providence, prayer, anthropomor- 
phism, personal immortality, etc. ; if I were to see 
all these truths, without which there is no happy 
life go to wreck beneath the legitimate effort of 
critical examination, I should clap my hands for ]oy 
over their ruin, thoroughly convinced that the real 
system of things, of which I may be still ignorant 
but in the direction of which this very denial is a 
step, infinitely surpasses the poor imaginations with- 
out which we cannot conceive the beauty of the 
universe. The gods only go to make room for others. 
That infinite beauty which we perceive only in vague 
outlines and which we endeavour to reproduce by 
paltry images exists, truly exists. It is more beauti- 
ful, more comforting a thousand times by far than 
that which my imagination may have conjured up. 
When the old anthropomorphic conception of the 
world disappeared before positive science, one might 
have been for a moment tempted to exclaim : " Good- 
bye to poetry, good-bye to the beautiful," and behold, 
the beautiful has revived more beautiful than ever. 
In the same way the moral world is far from having 
received a mortal blow by the destruction of old 
chimeras, the most realistic method being that which 
will lead us to its most dazzling marvels, and until 
we have discovered ineffable splendour, intoxicating 
truths, delightful and comforting beliefs we may 
rest assured that we are not within the truth, that 
we are merely passing through one of those fatal 
periods of transition when humanity ceases to believe 
in chimerical beauties ere it arrives at the discovery 
of the maivels of the reality. We should never get 



88 The Future of Science, 

frightened at the onward march of science, seeing 
that we may be sure that it will only lead to the 
discovery o£ incomparably beautiful things. Let us 
leave vulgar natures to exclaim with Micah when 
they had taken away his idols; "Ye have taken 
away my gods." Let us leave them to say with 
Serapion the converted anthropomorphist of Mount 
Athos ; " Alas, they have taken away my god, and 
I no longer know what I worship." As for us, when 
the temple topples down, instead of weeping on its 
ruins, let us think of the temples, which more mag- 
nificent and vast, will uprise in the future until the 
day when for ever shattering their narrow walls, 
thought will only have one temple, the roof of which 
will be the sky. 

Hence, science must pursue its road without mind- 
ing with whom it comes in collision. Let the others 
get out of the way. If it appears to raise objections 
against received dogmas, it is not for science but the 
received dogmas to be on the defensive and to reply 
to the objections. Science should behave as if the 
world were free from preconceived opinions, and not 
heed the difficulties it starts. Let the theologians 
come to an arrangement with one another to come 
to an agreement with science. We may as well take 
it for granted that that which is infinitely exceeds in 
beauty any and everything that which may be con- 
ceived ; that the Utopian who sets his fancy to work 
in the creation of the best possible world only brings 
forth child's work in comparison with the reality ; 
that when positive science only reveals triviality and 
finiteness, it is because it has not reached its final 
result. Fourier, scattering broadcast belts, crowns 
and aurorce boreales over the various worlds is nearer 
the truth than the physicist who thinks his small 
universe equal to that of God, and still, one day 
Fourier will be surpassed by the realists who will 
know the truth of things through unquestionable 
scientific observation. 

The reader will allow me to cite an example. 



Tlie Future of Science. 89 

The old manner of looking at immortality is in my 
opinion a "survival" of the conceptions of the 
primitive world and seems to me as narrow and as 
unacceptable as the anthropomorphic God. Man, in 
fact, is not to me, a composite of two substances, he 
is a unit, an individual resultant, a great persistent 
phenomenon, a thought prolonged. On the other 
hand, as soon as we deny immortality in an absolute 
manner, the world becomes colourless and sad. 
Now, it is an unquestionable fact that the world is 
beautiful beyond expression. Hence, we are bound to 
admit that everything which has been sacrificed in 
the furtherance of progress will be recovered at the 
end of the infinite, by a kind of immortality which 
moral science is sure to discover one of these days 
(42), and which will be to the fantastic immortality 
of the past as the palace of Versailles to a house of 
cards put together by a child. One may say as much 
of all the dogmas of our natural religion and morality, 
so colourless, so narrow, so lacking in the poetical 
that I should be afraid of offending God by believing 
in them. One may compare the old dogmas to those 
hypotheses of the physical sciences which afford 
sufficiently exact formulas for the representation of 
facts, though their expression be very faulty and 
contains a considerable part of fiction. One cannot 
say ; " things are thus ; " but one may say that, 
"things proceed as if it were thus." In calculating 
by the light of these hypotheses, one will get at 
exact results, because the error lies only in the ex- 
pression and the illustration not in the schema and 
the category itself. 

For the sake of the ultimate welfare of humanity 
there are centuries condemned to scepticism and 
immorality. To get from the beautiful, poetical 
world of the naive peoples we have had to pass 
through the atomic and mechanical world. In the 
same way, in order to create for itself a new world 
of beliefs humanity must destroy the old, which can 
only be done by passing through an age of incredulity 



90 TJie Future of Science. 



and speculative immorality. I say speculative, for 
uo one has the right to throw the blame of his per- 
sonal immorality on the century ; elevated souls are 
under the happy necessity of being virtuous and the 
eighteenth century has proved that the most hideous 
doctrines may go hand in hand with the purest con- 
duct and the most honourable character. This is an 
inconsistency, if you like. But there is no condition 
of humanity which can do without, and the first step 
of him who would think is to grow bolder in the 
face of contradictions, trusting to the future to re- 
concile them. A man who is consistent in his system 
of life is assuredly a narrow-minded one. For I defy 
him, in the actual condition of the human intellect 
to make all the elements of human nature acree. If 
he wants a system without a joint, he will be reduced 
to deny and to exclude. 

Paltry and absolute criticism always springs from 
the fact of looking at every development of philoso- 
phical history by itself and not from the point of view 
of humanity. All the conditions through which 
humanity passes are faulty and assailable. Every 
century proceeds towards the future, carrying its 
objection in its side like a bullet in a wound. The 
destruction of ancient beliefs and the formation of 
new ones is not always accomplished in the most 
desirable order. Science often destroys a belief 
when it is still neces-sary. Let us suppose that the 
day will come when humanity shall have no longer 
any need to believe in immortality, can we imagine 
the anguish the premature destruction of this com- 
forting faith will have caused to the unfortunate ones 
sacrificed to fate during our age of sorrow. In the 
definite constitution of humanity science will he 
happiness ; but in the imperfect state through which 
we are passing it may be dangerous to know too soon. 

My inmost conviction is that the religion of the 
future will be pure humanism, that is, the cult of 
everything that appertains to man, the whole of life 
sanctified and raised to a moral value. To tend 



The Future of Science. 91 

ones beautiful humanity (43) will then be the Law 
and the Prophets, and that without any particular 
form, without any . limit which will remind one of 
sect, or of exclusive brotherhood. The general 
characteristic of religious works is their specialness, 
that is, they require to be understood a special 
sense which every one has not; separate belief's, 
separate feelings, separate style, separate figures. 
Religious works are for adepts ; for they, the works, 
assume the existence of the profane. Assuredly 
St. Paul was an admirable genius ; still, does the 
beauty of his letters consist in the grand instincts 
of human nature taken in the most general form as, 
for instance, in the dialogues of Plato? No. Seneca 
and Tacitus, perusing these curious compositions 
would not have considered them beautiful, at any 
rate not to the same extent that we do, initiated as 
we are in the data of Christian aesthetics. Several 
religious sects of the East, the Druses, the Mendaites, 
the Ansarians have sacred writings affording them 
a very substantial pabulum, but which to us are 
ridiculous or utterly insignificant. The sectarian's 
mind is closed to half of the world. Every sect pre- 
sents itself to us circumscribed by limits ; and no 
matter what limit is most antipathetic to our ex- 
pansion of mind. We have seen so many of them 
that we cannot resign ourselves to the belief that 
the one any more than the other has got hold of the 
absolute truth. While willingly admitting that grand 
originality has up till now been sectarian or at any rate 
dogmatic, we cannot fail to see with equal certainty 
the absolute impossibility of confining the human 
intellect in the future in any of those vices. With 
a consciousness of humanity as developed as ours, we 
should soon bring about the reconciliation, we should 
judge ourselves as we judge the past, we should 
criticize ourselves whilst alive. Sectarian dogma- 
tism is irreconcilable with criticism, for how can one 
help testing on one's self the laws observed in the 
c.evelopment oi other doctrines, and how can one 



92 The Future of Science. 

reconcile absolute belief with such a reflective view ? 
We may therefore say without hesitation that no 
religious sect will henceforth spring up in Europe 
unless new and ingenuous races strangers to thought, 
stifle once more all civilization ; and even then 
one may affirm that this form of religion will be far 
less energetic than in the past and will not result 
in anything very characteristic. People are not 
converted from finesse to stupidity. One always 
remembers having been a critic and is often taken 
with laughter — even at one's adversaries in default 
of others. And apostles never laugh ; laughter 
means scepticism already, for after having laughed 
at others, if one be consistent, one will also laugh at 
one's self. 

For a religious sect to become henceforth possible 
we should want a deep moat of oblivion like that 
dug by barbaric invasion in which all the recollec- 
tions of the modern world must be shot. Keep but 
one library, one school, one more or less significant 
monument, and you preserve criticism, or at least, 
the remembrance of a critical age. And, I repeat, 
there is but one means of being cured of criticism as 
of scepticism, namely, to forget radically its previous 
development and to recommence on another footing. 
That is why all the religious sects which for the last 
half century have endeavoured to establish them- 
selves in Europe have struck against the spirit of 
criticism which took them on their ridiculous and 
irrational side to a degree such that the sectaries in 
their turn choose the wiser part of laughing at them- 
selves. The century is so little religious as to have 
been unable to give birth even to a heresy (-14). To 
attempt a religious innovation is to perform an act 
of belief, and it is because the world knows well 
enough that nothing is to be done in that order of 
things that it becomes bad taste to change anything 
in the statu quo of religion. France is of all countries 
the most orthodox for it is the least religious country 
in the world. If France had to a greater extent the 



The Future of Science. 93 



sentiment of religion, it would have become Pro- 
testant like Germany. But not understanding any- 
thing of theology, and nevertheless feeling the need 
of a belief she thinks it easier to take the ready made 
system readiest to hand without caring in the least 
to make it more perfect ; because to attempt to make 
it more perfect would be to take it earnestly, it 
would be assuming the part of theologian ; and it is 
the correct thing with us to profess not to concern 
one's self with that kind of thing. Nothing is nearer 
to indifference than orthodoxy. The heresiarch has 
then, nothing to hops for nowadays, either from 
the severe orthodox who would anathematize him, 
or from the freethinkers who would smile at the 
attempt to reform that which cannot be reformed. 

There is a very delicate line of demarcation beyond 
which the philosophical school becomes. a sect; woe 
to him who crosses it. In a moment the language 
becomes altered ; one no longer speaks to the world 
at large, there is an affectation of mystical form, a 
kind of incredulity and superstition creeps into 
doctrines — one knows not whence — that seemed 
altogether rational, reverie becomes mixed with 
science in an indistinguishable tissue. The school of 
Alexandria presents the most curious instance of this 
transformation. Saint- Simonism has renewed it in 
our days. I am convinced that if that school had 
kept to the lines of Saint- Simon, who, though 
very superficial on account of his defective education 
had really the scientific spirit, and under the direc- 
tion of Bazard, who was certainly a philosopher in 
the best acceptation of the word, it would have 
become the original philosophy of the France of 
the nineteenth century. But the moment the less 
earnest spirits take the upper hand, the dross of 
superstition appears, the school turns to religion, only 
arouses laughter and breathes its last at Menilmon- 
tant amidst extravagances which wind up the history 
of all sects. Assuredly a tremendous lesson for the 
future. 



94 The Future of Science. 



Large-minded and unfettered science without any 
bond but that of reason, without a defined creed, 
without temples, without priests, living at ease in 
what is called the profane world, that is the form 
of the beliefs which henceforth will carry humanity 
with them. The temples of this doctrine will be 
not schools like those of to-day, childish, cramped, 
scholastic, but resorts of leisure as in ancient times 
(jicholce) where men foregather to partake together 
of the food provided for supra-sensible minds. The 
priests are the philosophers, the savants, the poets, 
the artists, that is, the men who have accepted the 
ideal as part of their inheritance and have relinquished 
the earthly portion (45). In this way the poetic 
priesthood of the first pioneers of civilization will 
come back to us. Many admirable intellects have 
often expressed regret at philosophy not having its 
temples and pulpits. Let us have them by all means, 
provided that nothing shall be taught in them except 
what is taught at the Sorbonne and the College of 
France, that, in one word, they shall be schools, 
shorn of their pedagogic varnish. Schools are the 
real competitors with temples. If you raise altar 
against altar, you will be told; "We prefer the old 
ones, not because we have greater faith in them, but 
because our fathers worshipped that way." If we 
were entrusted with the religious education of the 
people, we should have to begin by its sc-called pro- 
fane education, by teaching them history, science, 
and languages. For real religion is only the 
culmination of intellectual culture and it will not be 
accessible to the masses, until education shall be 
accessible to all. Our glory lies in always appealing 
to light ; we pride ourselves in not being understood 
save on the condition of superior culture, on our 
strength being in direct proportion to our civilization. 
The eighteenth century must in this respect, always 
remain our model ; the eighteenth century which 
has changed the world and inspired energetic con- 
victions without attempting to become a sect or a 



The Future of Science. 95 

religion and by remaining purely scientific arid 
philosophical. Social and religious reform will 
assuredly come, seeing that every one is wishing for 
it, but it will not come from any one sect ; it will 
come from the grand science, common to all, and 
operating in the unrestricted midst of human intelli- 
gence. 

Hence the question of the future of religion must 
be resolved in divers ways according to the meaning 
attached to the word. If by religion we understand 
an ensemble of doctrines traditionally bequeathed, 
assuming a mythical form, exclusive and sectarian, 
then we are bound to say unhesitatingly, that the 
religions will have been the distinguishing mark of 
an epoch of humanity, but that they are in no way an 
integral part of human nature, and that one day they 
will disappear (46). If on the other hand we take 
the word to mean a belief accompanied by enthu- 
siasm, crowning conviction with devotion and faith 
with sacrifice, then there is no doubt that humanity 
will never cease to be religious. But it is equally 
certain that henceforth no doctrine will have a 
chance of making headway without being solidly 
interwoven with humanity at large, and eliminating 
all speciality of form, without appealing to every one 
without distinction of adepts and profane. It causes 
me genuine grief to see distinguished intellects 
desert the grand audience of humanity in order to 
enact the easy part, so nattering to their estimate of 
self, of grand priests and prophets in conclaves which 
up till now are nothing more than clubs. What a 
difference between the philosopher whose name was 
formerly Pierre Leroux and the patriarch of a small 
church, surrounded by a knot of affiliated converts, 
concerning whom one hesitatingly puts the question; 
"Are they stupid enough to be believers?" In 
Heaven's name, if you do happen to have got hold 
cf the truth, do address yourself to the whole of 
humanity. The man of secret societies is always 
L.arrow-minded, suspicious, one sided. The famili- 



96 TJie Future of Science. 



arity with such a small world destroys the familiarity 
with the great one ; one ends by becoming suspicious 
of human nature and by founding the hope of success 
on factitious means, and obscure manoeuvres. Great 
things are accomplished in open daylight. I do not 
mean to offend those whom present necessity com- 
pels to lock themselves in conclaves ; very often, 
I am bound to say, they cannot help themselves. 
When the majority of the public is egotistical and 
immoral, we must pardon those who constitute them- 
selves into secret committees, however prejudicial a 
blow such a life may strike at their intellectual 
development. Who shall blame the first Christians 
for having made unto themselves a world apart 
amidst the corrupt society of their times ? Never- 
theless, such a necessity is always a misfortune. 
One of the results of my historical studies, as far as 
I am personally concerned, has been to make me 
understand the apostle, the prophet, the founder of 
a religion ; I am thoroughly aware of the sublimity 
and the errors inseparable from such an intellectual 
position. It seems to me that I have succeeded 
now and then in reproducing within myself by means 
of reflection the psychological facts that must have 
naturally perturbed those lofty souls. Well, I do 
not hesitate to say that the time for this kind of 
parts is gone by. The universal, that is, the human 
must henceforth be the outward criterion of a 
doctrine that solicits the faith of human kind. All 
that is sectarian must be placed on the same level 
with those products of a puny, weak literature which 
cannot live outside the atmosphere of the drawing- 
rooms in which they blossomed. We must be on 
our guard against those people who can only be 
understood by a committee. Common sense has 
relegated to its proper place that curious aesthetic 
school of irony, brought into fashion by Schlegel, 
where the artist proudly draping himself in his 
virtuosity and geniality made it a point to present 
nothing but insignificant and tasteless truisms, then 



The Future of Science. 97 



shrugged his shoulders at the denseness of the public 
which did not care for these platitudes. All that 
partakes of the nature of monopoly in the world of 
thought, all that requires, in order to be understood 
a kind of special revelation, a sense apart, not 
possessed by humanity, must be fatally driven 
towards the like excess. 

Hence, science is a religion, science alone will 
henceforth make the creeds, science alone can solve 
for men the eternal problems, the solution of which 
his nature imperatively demands. 



98 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Why then is science whose fate is so closely bound 
up with that of the human intellect so badly under- 
stood as a rule ? Why does it seem only a pastime 
or a supplementary thing ? Why is the learned man 
in France I do not say an object of chaff to the 
frivolous minded — that would be an honourable title 
as far as he himself is concerned— but a useless piece 
of furniture in the opinion of many refined minds, 
something analogous to those literary abbes who were 
part of the furniture of a nobleman's seat much in 
the same way as the library itself. In fact, literature 
proper is a great deal better understood. There is 
no one who, from a more or less elevated standpoint, 
does not admit the necessity of people to write plays, 
novels, and periodical articles. Truly, there are few 
who have a conception of the earnest side of litera- 
ture aud poetry ; the literary man is, in the opiDion 
of the majority, only fit to amuse them, and the 
savant not having the same privilege is for that very 
reason, voted useless and a bore. People are apt to 
think that this is the case because he investigates, 
edits and comment's on the work of others. Besides 
it is so very easy to ridicule his patient researches. 
One must be dull indeed not to be able to coin a 
feeble joke on the subject of a man who spends his 
life in deciphering old marbles, in guessing at un- 
known alphabets, at interpreting and commenting on 
texts, which to the ignorant, are only ridiculous aid 
absurd. Those jokes have that false appearance of 



The Future of Science. 99 

common sense, so powerful in France and which too 
often governs public opinion. A journalist, a manu- 
facturer is considered a " serious " person. But the 
savant is of no account, unless he be a professor. 
Science should not put its head out of the college or 
special school, the public at large has no business 
with it. Let the professor occupy himself with it, 
that is right enough, it is his trade. But every one 
else who devotes his life to it meddles with what 
does not concern him, something like the man who 
learns a trade without ever intending to practise it. 
Hence the discredit attached to every branch of 
study not contributing directly to classical or peda- 
gogical education, the necessity of which is accepted 
in good faith, without much knowledge of the reason 
why. The best judges acknowledge that all the 
branches of philological studies, the East and India 
above all may afford the history of the human 
intellect its most precious data. Then why is this 
California so little exploited ? Alas, let us give the 
reason in its most prosaic harshness. It is because 
there is no outlet. 

Whence arises this ignoble mistake ? Let us first 
of all admit that a feeling of enthusiasm for science 
is much more rare and difficult in an age like ours 
which has witnessed such unquestionable progress in 
every branch of human knowledge than at an epoch 
when all the sciences were merely being created. 
Conquest and discovery imply a waking up and entail 
an exertion of strength which must remain foreign 
to those who need only march along in the already 
beaten track. Where is the philologist of our days 
who brings to his researches the intoxication of the 
first classical students, Petrarch, Boccacio, Poggio, 
Ambrose Traversari, the men who were so powerfully 
moved by the desire to know, who carried the 
worship of the new studies by which they enriched 
the human intellect to a degree of lofty mysticism, 
who suffered persecution, who starved in the pursuit 
of their ideal object. Where is the Orientalist who 



100 The Future of Science. 

raves on his subject like Guillaume Postel ? Where 
is the astronomer capable of the ecstacies of Kepler, 
the student of physical science capable of the pro- 
phetic excitement of the two Bacons ? It was the 
heroic age of science when one philologist haply 
counted among his Anecdota Homer, another Livy, 
a third Plato. It is very easy to stigmatize those 
noble follies with the rather equivocal term of 
pedantry, it is easier still to show that those pas- 
sionate lovers of science had neither the good taste 
nor the severe method of our century. But might 
we not also envy them their powerful love and their 
disinterestedness ? 

It does not come within the scope of my plan to 
inquire in how far the system of public education in 
France is responsible for the decay of the scientific 
spirit. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the small 
importance attached among us to higher education, 
the total lack of an institution corresponding to that 
of the German universities is one of its principal 
causes (47). I am the least likely man to libel the 
teaching given at the faculties. Germany has 
nothing to compare to the Sorbonne or to the College 
of France. In fact, I am not aware of the existence 
outside Paris of an institution whither savants and 
thinkers come pretty well without a programme to 
entertain regularly a public solely attracted by the 
charm or the importance of their lectures. They are 
two admirable institutions, essentially French, but 
they are not like the German universities. They are 
far beyond them, but they do not answer the same 
purpose. Apart from a few courses of a character 
altogether special, the lack of a constant and com- 
pulsory audience does not allow of demonstration 
of a very scientific nature. Face to face with a 
public the majority of which wishes above all to be 
interestingly amused, the lecturer is bound to enun- 
ciate ingenious views, to afford ingenious glimpses, 
rather than rely upon scientific discussion. I am 
aware that those views are the principal aim which. 



The Future of Science. 101 



we should set ourselves in scientific research; but 
however excellent the manner in which they are pro- 
pounded, it can scarcely be denied that the courses 
which necessarily attract a great number of listeners 
and which exercise the greatest influence on the 
culture of the intellect, are the least likely to con- 
tribute to the spread of the scientific spirit. A great 
number of theories can, therefore, only find room 
in the curriculum of the Lyceums, where science does 
not occupy its dignified position (48). How can 
public opinion be favourable to science, when the 
majority only know it from their old college recollec- 
tions, which besides they are in a hurry to drop and 
which cannot make them conceive it in its true light? 
Hence, serious books and studies seem to have no 
significance save with a view to education, while on 
the contrary education should be only one of the 
least applications of science. This ridiculous pre- 
judice is one of the greatest troubles in the path of 
him who devotes his life to pure science. 

Thus by a. strange reversal, science with us is only 
made for the schools, while the school should only 
be made for science. No doubt if the school in 
modern days were like that of antiquity, a gathering 
of men solely impelled by the desire to know and 
united by a common method of philosophizing, one 
might allow science to lock itself into it. But the 
school with us having as a rule a practical or peda- 
gogic purpose, the reduction of science to narrow 
proportions, the supposition that philology is only of 
use in so far as it aids classical education is the 
greatest humiliation imaginable and most opposed 
to good sense. The department of science and 
serious research becomes in this way that of public 
education as if such things had no value except in 
so far as they are aids to education. Hence the idea 
that as soon as one's education is finished, one need 
not concern one's self any longer with them, and 
that they only concern the professors. In fact, it 
would be difficult indeed, I believe, to find among us 



102 The Future of Science. 

a philologist who does not in some way belong to the 
scholastic, profession and a philological book, not 
written for the use of schools or with some other 
scholastic purpose. It is a strange vicious circle, 
for if these things are of no use save for the purpose 
of teaching, if they are to be studied only by those 
who are to teach them, what is the good of teaching 
them? 

Heaven forbid that we should try to lower those 
noble and useful functions that help to prepare the 
seriously-inclined intellect for every career ; but it 
appears to me that we should thoroughly distinguish 
between science and instruction and give to the 
former, apart from the latter a religious and philo- 
sophical aim. The savant and the professor differ as 
much from one another as the manufacturer and the 
retailer. The confusion that has arisen in peoples' 
minds with regard to them has contributed to throw 
a kind of slight on the most important branches of 
science, on the very ones which on account of their 
importance were considered worthy of being selected 
as the bases of classical studies. Fashion is not half 
so severe with regard to studies of lesser importance 
which do not happen to remind us in so awkward a 
way of our college days. 

Hence, we must accustom ourselves to consider 
the application of certain branches of science and 
especially of philology to classical studies as some- 
thing accessory and secondary from the standpoint 
of science. It is only in connection with positive 
philosophy that everything has its price and its value. 
The frivolous mind which does not understand 
science, pedantry which understands it badly and 
causes its depreciation both spring from an absence 
of the philosophic spirit. We must accustom our- 
selves to look for the value of knowledge in know- 
ledge itself and not iu the use one may make of it 
for the education of childhood or youth. 

No doubt, by the natural force of things, the men 
most eminent in each branch of science will be called 



The Future of Science. 103 

upon to teach them, and reciprocally the professors 
will always have a gift apart. . It is even worthy of 
note that all the most illustrious names in modern 
science are those of professors. One would look in 
vain among the free contingent of amateurs for 
Heynes, Bopps, Sacys, Burnout's. Nevertheless, one 
cannot willingly blind one's self to the grave danger 
of science becoming too exclusively a matter of 
schools. It would contract habits of pedantry, 
which by investing it with a particular colour would 
drag it away from the grand midst of humanity. 
No one is more profoundly convinced than I that 
science cannot live without what we call the tech- 
nique, no one has less sympathy than I have with 
the kind of drawing-room science, emasculated in 
form, trying to be interesting, a science of semi- 
scientific, semi-fashionable reviews. True science is 
that which belongs neither to the school, nor to the 
drawing-room, but which responds exactly to the 
want of man ; that which shows no trace of institu- 
tion or fictitious custom, in one word that which re- 
minds us most of the schools of ancient Greece, 
which in this as in everything has given us the 
model of the pure and sincere. Look at Aristotle. 
The scientific apparel takes up more space with him 
that with no matter what modern savant, Kant per- 
haps excepted. It is evident that the human in- 
tellect delighted at the discovery of those orderly 
pigeon holes of thought which dialectics bring to 
light, attached at first too much importance to them 
and naively believed that every idea might advan- 
tageously be moulded in those forms. Still, is 
Aristotle, though so eminently technical, exactly 
scholastic? No. Compare his "Khetoric" to the 
modern rhetorics, which after all and in reality are 
but so many weak reproductions of it, and you will 
on the one hand, have an original work, though 
strange in form, a true, albeit somewhat idle analysis 
of one of the facets of the human mind, on the other, 
books utterly insignificant and absolutely useless 



104 Hie Future of Science. 



outside the college. Compare the l£ Analytics " with 
the "scholastic logics" of the old school and you 
will he confronted with the same contrast. There- 
fore, in forbidding science to assume the scholastic 
air, we make no concession to the superficial intellect 
which should never be considered. We merely wish 
to bring science back to its grand and beautiful form 
which the French intellect understands so well. 
There is " good taste " in science as well as in litera- 
ture which our countrymen have caught every now 
and then in a very superior and delicate way. German 
science is in this respect not bound to observe so 
many precautions. It may assume the scholastic air 
and surround itself with a scholastic perfume which 
with us would be considered scandalous. Are we to 
congratulate it on that account ? Grave intellects 
readily make excuses for pedantry. They know that 
this form of intellectual labour is often necessary, 
always pardonable. No one objects to it in the 
classics of the Carlovingian restoration, nor in those 
of the Renaissance ; the human intellect is sure to 
amuse itself for some time with its discoveries and 
the new results it introduces into science, it is bound 
to make a pleasant pastime, nay a toy of it, before 
making it an object of philosophic meditation. The 
same tone will be sure to crop up once more and will 
be equally pardoned in the exclusive and pre-occupied 
savant who works his mine with passion, especially 
if a powerful spirit does not come to the rescue to 
animate his patient researches, and if the simplicity 
of his outward life reduces him to the everlasting and 
unchanging role of savant. The higher philosophy, 
intercourse with society or the practical pursuit of 
business can alone preserve science from pedantry. 
But for many, many long years we shall still have to 
pardon the savant for being neither a philosopher, 
nor a man of the world, nor a statesman, even when 
they bear the title of Court Councillors as in Germany. 
Our sensitiveness in this respect is perhaps one of 
the reasons why philology, though represented in 



Tlie Future of Science. 105 

France by so many illustrious names is always held 
back by a kind of shamefacedness, and dares not pro- 
claim itself openly. We are so terribly afraid of ridi- 
cule that everything which can possibly lend itself to 
it arouses our suspicion ; and the most worthy things 
by slightly changing their name and shade lay them- 
selves open to it. The term pedantry, which, if not 
clearly denned, may be so mischievously applied, and 
which with the unthinking is almost synonymous 
with everything relating to serious and scientific 
inquiry has in this way become a scarecrow to subtle 
and refined intellects who have often preferred to 
remain superficial rather than lay themselves open 
to the attack the most painful of all to us. This 
scruple has been carried so far that we have seen 
critics of the highest order of intellect deliberately 
leave their expressions incomplete rather than employ 
the scholastic word, when the scholastic word was 
the right one to employ. Scholastic jargon when 
it merely hides the absence of thought or when 
merely used to " show off " by the narrow intellect 
is tasteless and ridiculous. But to deliberately 
banish the exact and technical style, which alone 
is capable of expressing certain delicate or deep 
shades of thought, to do this is to fall into a purism 
equally unreasonable. Kant and Hegel or, even 
minds as absolutely emancipated from the scholastic 
traditions as Herder, Schiller and Goethe would, if 
judged like that, not escape our terrible accusation 
of pedantry. 

We may congratulate our neighbours upon their 
freedom from all such fetters, which, we are bound 
to say, would be less hurtful to them than to us. 
With them the school and science are in touch ; 
with us, every system of higher education, which in 
its manner, has still the scent of the school about it, 
is voted " bad form " and unbearable. People think 
they are showing great subtlety and tact by placing 
themselves above everything that reminds them of 
school instruction. Every one indulges in that small 



106 The Future of Science. 

conceit, and fancies he is proving in that way that 
he has got over his schooling long ago. Does it 
sound credible to us that in the ceremonies, resembling 
our distributions of prizes, when with us a display of 
eloquence is the thing, the Germans confine them- 
selves to the reading aloud of grammatical disserta- 
tions of the severest kind and bristling with Greek 
and Latin words (49) ? Should we be able to under- 
stand solemn and public sittings, occupied with the 
following lectures. " On the Nature of the Con- 
junction.' 1 '' — " On the German period." — " On the 
Greek Mathematicians." — " On the topography of 
the Battle of Marathon.'''' — " On the plain of Crissa." 
— " On the centuries of Servius Tullius." — " On the 
Vineyards of Attica." — " Classification of the Pre- 
positions." — u Elucidation of the difficult words in 
Homer." — " Commentary on the portrait of T her sites 
in Homer;" etc.; etc. (50)? All this implies 
among our neighbours a marvellous taste for the 
serious, and also perhaps a certain amount of courage 
in beiog bored without wincing when etiquette re- 
quires it. Madame de Stael says that the Viennese 
of her time amused themselves methodically and as 
a matter of conscience. Perhaps the German public 
may also be more patient than ours when it becomes 
a question of being bored ceremoniously and by 
official invitation. It will soon become with us a 
meritorious act to witness a sitting of the Academy 
of Inscriptions, though the blame may not be laid 
at the door of the Academies. Our public is too 
difficult to please, it wants to be interested and even 
amused where instruction should suffice ; and in fact 
until one has a conception of the lofty and philo- 
sophical aim of science, as long as people will look 
upon it as a kind of curiosity, like any other curiosity, 
it will be voted a bore and taxed with the ennui it 
produces. Play for play there is no reason why the 
least attractive should be chosen. 

Montaigne who in many respects is the eminently 
typical intellect of the Frenchman, represents that 



The Future of Science. 1 07 

typical intellect above all by his horror of everything 
that reminds him of pedantry. It is a treat to see 
him do the "free and easy," the man of the world 
who understands nothing of science and " knows 
everything without having ever learned anything."* 
"All these," he says; "are but so many dreams of 
a man who has only tasted the upper crust of science 
in his infancy, and has only retained a general and 
vague impression of it ; a little of everything and 
nothing at all, in the French fashion. For in sum, 
I know that there is a science of medicine, of juris- 
prudence, four parts in mathematics, and roughly at 
what they aim. And I may perhaps have an inkling 
of the pretensions of sciences in general with regard 
to their use in life, but as for having gone deeper 
into them, as for having bitten my nails to the quick 
in the study of Aristotle, the king of the modern 
method, or having obstinately pursued any science 
at all, I have never done so, there is no art of which 
I can do more than lay down the first principles. 
There is not a middle class child, but what may call 
itself more learned than I, who could not make it 
go through its first lesson. And if I were compelled 
to do so, I should be obliged to draw absurdly from 
said lesson some matter of general import, on which 
I would examine his natural aptitude ; a lesson as 
utterly unknown to him, as his is to me." 

Nevertheless, he takes good care to show that he 
understands as much about it as any one else, and to 
reveal such traits of learning as may do credit to his 
understanding, provided it be taken for granted that 
he sets no store by them and that he is above such 
pedantry. He prides himself upon having no memory 
{retention) and "to be a capital hand at forgetting " 
excellent en oubliance. "I have got no store cup- 
board ; " {Je rtai pas de gardoire) he says ; " for it is 
by that that the learned shine." Upon the whole, it 
is a nice quiet way of snapping his fingers at the 
virtues of the savant in order to raise himself in 
* Moliere. — Transl. 



108 The Future of Science. 



peoples' estimation by those of the man of sense and 
the man of wit, a way eminently characteristic of the 
French intellect and which Madame de Stael desig- 
nates so very cleverly by the name of " the pedantry 
of thoughtlessness " (51). 



Tiie Future of Science. 109 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Just as in the very bosom of religion there are 
a great many men handling sacred matters without 
the least idea of their lofty meaning, and only look- 
ing at them in the light of vulgar manipulation, so 
in the field of science there are labourers — very 
worthy people in the main — often utterly lacking in 
the sentiment of their work and its value in the 
furtherance of the ideal. Let us hasten to add that 
it would be unfair to require of the savant the ever 
immediate consciousness of the aim of his work ; it 
would be bad taste on our part to wish him to speak 
of it deliberately in and out of season ; it would be 
compelling him to head all his works with the self- 
same prolegomena. Take the most beautiful scientific 
works, peruse the works of Letronne, of Burnouf, of 
Lassen, of Grimm and of the princes of modern criti- 
cism generally and perhaps you would seek in vain 
for a page directly and abstractedly philosophical. 
The fact of their authors being thoroughly imbued 
with the philosophic spirit is made manifest not so 
much by an isolated flight of rhetoric as by the 
general spirit and method. Nay, this prudent ab- 
stention may often be taken as an act of scientific 
virtue and the heroes of science are they who, though 
more capable than no matter whom of indulging in 
lofty speculation, have the strength of mind to con- 
fine themselves to the strict statement of facts and ab- 
staining voluntarily from anticipated generalizations. 



110 The Future of Science. 

Works undertaken without this noble spirit may even 
powerfully aid in the cultivation of the human intel- 
lect irrespective of the more or less paltry intentions 
of their authors. Is it at all necessary for the marble 
quarrier to have an idea of the future monument of 
which the blocks which he quarries will form a part ? 
Among the laborious workers of science who have 
raised the edifice of science many looked no further 
than the stone they shaped, or at any rate no further 
than the limited region where they placed it. Like 
the ants, they each bring their individual tribute, 
remove some obstacle, cross one another incessantly, 
apparently without the slightest attempt at order, 
and only get in one another's way. Nevertheless, it 
happens that by the united labour of so many men. 
and without any preconceived plan a science is orga- 
nized, and organized in noble proportions. An in- 
visible genius has been the architect presiding over 
the whole and has made all those isolated efforts 
subservient to a perfect unity. 

By studying the origin of each science one will 
find that the first steps were nearly always taken 
with no very distinct consciousness, and that 
among others, philological studies owe a large debt 
of gratitude to very mediocre intellects, which at the 
outset laid down their material conditions. Hervas, 
Paulin de Saint-Barthelemi, Pigafetta who must be 
considered the founders of linguistic science were 
certainly not geniuses. What an immense fact in 
the history of the human intellect is the initiation of 
the Latin world in the understanding of Greek litera- 
ture. The two men who contributed most powerfully 
to it, Barlaam and Leontius Pilatus were according 
to Petrarch and Boccacio who knew them so very 
intimately two nonentities' who were as surly as 
they were whimsical. The majority of the Greek 
emigrants who played so important a part in the 
development of European intelligence were men of 
no parts whatsoever, downright labourers who took 
advantage per alcuni clcnari of their knowledge of 



The Future of Science. 1 1 1 

Greek. For every Bessarion there were a hundred 
Pkilelphuses. The lexicographers are as a rule not 
very great philosophers and still the best book on gene- 
ralities has not had so great an influence on the higher 
sciences as the dictionary — philosophically an ex- 
ceedingly poor performance — by which Wilson made 
the study of Sanskrit possible in Europe. There are 
works requiring an amount of plodding drudgery to 
which men impelled by too powerful a craving for 
philosophical studies would with difficulty submit. 
Would lofty and energetic minds have succeeded 
in accomplishing the immense works issued from the 
scientific workshops of the congregation of St. Maur?* 
Every scientific work, conducted according to a sound 
method, keeps its unquestionable value, irrespective 
of the wider or narrower views of its author. The 
only useless works are those in which the smatterer 
or the quack pretends to imitate the bearing of 
genuine science, and those in which the author, 
prompted by an interested thought, Or by the pre- 
conceived dreams of his imagination is bent at all 
costs upon finding his chimeras everywhere. 

Though it is not necessary for the workman to 
have a perfect knowledge of the work he executes, 
one could wish those who devote themselves to 
special labours to have an idea of the whole which 
alone imparts value to their researches. If the many 
laborious workers to whom science owes its progress 
had possessed the philosophical spirit of what they 
did, if they had perceived in learning something 
more than the satisfaction of their vanity or curiosity, 
how many precious moments would have been saved, 
how many fruitless excursions spared, how many 
lives given up to insignificant works would have 
been devoted to more useful researches. When we 
come to consider that the intellectual labour of whole 

* The congregatioTi of St. Maur, a reformed branch of the order 
of St. Benedict, was founded in France in the seventeenth century 
and has rightly been called the nursery ground of savants. — 
IY.ansl. 



112 The Future of Science. 

centuries, of whole countries, of Spain for instance, 
has been wasted, for lack of a substantial object 
in view, that millions of volumes have crumbled to 
dust without producing the least result, we cannot 
help regretting deeply this immense loss of human 
force, brought about by the absence of guidance 
and for want of a distinct perception of the goal to 
be reached. The intensely sad impression one feels 
on entering a library is due mainly to the thought 
that nine-tenths of the books crowded together 
there have missed their mark, and whether through 
the fault of the author himself, or through the 
fault of circumstances have never had nor will ever 
have, any direct action on the onward march of 
humanity. 

It seems to me that science will only then recover 
its dignity when it takes up its definite stand on the 
grand and wide point of view of its veritable aim. 
In former days there was room for that trivial and 
more or less innocuous character of the savant of 
the Restoration, a semi-courtier-like part, the actor 
of which had a way of allowing himself to be taken 
for a man of solid attainments who tossed his head 
at ambitious innovations ; it was a way of securing 
the patronage of some Maecenas, a duke or peer, 
who as a mark of high favour admitted him in the 
capacity of a bit of furniture of his drawing-room, 
or of an antique curio of his collection ; and in the 
whole transaction there was nothing deserving the 
name of serious, there was nothing but the more or 
less imbecile laughter of vanity, the laughter so terribly 
aggravating when it presumes to meddle with serious 
matters. That is tbe kind of thing which is doomed 
to disappear for ever more, that is as good as buried 
together with the playthings of a society in which 
shams still played so important a part. To entice 
science from the grandiose midst of humanity in 
order to make it an idle plaything of a court or a 
drawing-room is degrading science, for the day is not 
far distant when everything that is not serious and 



The Future of Science. 113 

true will be ridiculous. Let us, then, be true for 
Heaven's sake, true like Thales when from his own 
initiative and impelled from within he took to 
speculating upon nature, true like Socrates, true 
like Jesus, genuine like St. Paul, genuine like all 
those great men which the ideal claimed as its own, 
took possession of and dragged after it. Let us leave 
old-world twaddle to plead lukewarmly in apology 
for science that like everything else, it is a neces- 
sity, an ornament, that it confers lustre on a country, 
etc., etc. All this is so much sheer imbecility. 
Where is the noble and philosophic soul, eager for 
perfection, possessing the sentiment of its intrinsic 
worth that would consent tc sacrifice itself to such 
vanities, that would gladly take up its place in the 
inanimate tapestry of human nature, to enact in the 
living world the part of a mummy in a museum. 
As for myself, I confess frankly that if I could see 
a form of life more beautiful than that of science, 
I should run to embrace it. How can one be recon- 
ciled to what one knows to be the second-best ? How 
can one consent to put one's self among the waste, 
to accept a mere part of show when life is so short, 
when nothing can make up for the moments not 
devoted to the delights of the ideal ? Oh, truth 
and earnestness of life, oh holy poesy of things, what 
is there to console us for having no feeling for thee ? 
And to talk for a moment of the serious hour to 
which everyone must look forward to appreciate 
things in their true liffht, who will be able to breathe 
his last tranquilly, when, in casting a glance back- 
ward, he only finds in his life frivolity or gratified 
curiosity ? The end only is worthy of being looked 
at, the whole rest nothing but vanity. To live does 
not mean to glide smoothly along a pleasant surface, 
it does not mean making the world your plaything 
in the pursuit of your own pleasure ; it means to 
partake of many beautiful things, it means, to be the 
fellow-traveller of the stars ; it means knowledge, 
hope, love, admiration ; it means well-doing. He 

i 



114 The Future of Science. 



has lived most and most worthily who by his heart 
and intellect, by his acts has worshipped most. 

Hence, to look at science in the light of a mere 
satisfaction of vanity or curiosity is as great an error 
as to consider poetry merely the listless exercise 
of frivolous minds, or literature the amusement of 
which one tires least, and to which one comes back 
most willingly. The collector and the amateur 
may render signal services to science, but they are 
neither savants nor philosophers. They are as far 
removed from it as the manufacturer. For they 
amuse themselves, they pursue their own pleasure 
just as the manufacturer seeks his profit. I am 
aware of there being various degrees of curiosity. 
There is a wide difference between the paltry instinct 
of the collector which scarcely differs from the attach- 
ment of the child to his toys, and the more elevated 
form when it becomes a love of knowledge, that is ; 
a legitimate instinct of nature and may be productive 
of a very noble existence. Boyle and Charles Nodier 
are only mere inquirers, and still they closely trench 
upon the philosopher. It is very rare, in fact, that 
with the highest exercise of the intellect there is 
not mixed up a certain amount of pleasure, which 
though having no value as far as the ideal is con- 
cerned, is none the less useful. It would be difficult 
to say how many discoveries have been simply due 
to curiosity. How many compilations, precious in 
view of ultimate researches w r ould have never been 
made but for that innocent love of labour with which 
many mildly active natures cheat their craving. It 
would be cruel indeed to refuse to those humble 
workers the trivial and not very lofty pleasure, but 
sw r eet withal, which M. Daunou has so well defined 
as paperasser.* We are all more or less glad at having 
felt the same satisfaction, if for no other reason than 
because it has helped us to devour the barren pages 

* Paperasser means both a love of scribbling and of ferreting 
among documents, l'aimou was the author of a remarkable series 
of Historical -Essays; died about 1840. — TraxjL. 



The Future of Science. 115 

of science. Without this the first studies necessary 
to master the material baggage of a language would 
be unbearable, and thanks to this they become the 
most attractive imaginable. 

We may go further still and positively affirm that 
without this attraction the most learned men of 
modern times who were neither borne up by lofty 
philosophical views, nor by directly religious motives, 
would not have undertaken those immense labours 
which have made the investigations of higher criti- 
cism possible to us. He who, with our material 
wants intensified to a greater pitch, would accom- 
plish a similar act of abnegation to-day, would be 
a hero. But it is important to maintain for all that, 
that this curiosity has no immediate moral whatsoever, 
and that its possession does not constitute the savant. 
There are manufacturers who exploit science for their 
benefit, the others exploit it for their amusement. 
No doubt the latter is the better part, but there is 
not an enormous difference between the two. Plea- 
sure being essentially personal and interested, there 
is nothing whatsoever sacred or moral about it. All 
literature, all poesy, all science whose only aim is 
to amuse or merely to awaken interest is for this 
very reason frivolous and vain, or to speak correctly, 
has no right at all to call itself literature, poesy or 
science. The mountebanks in the streets and else- 
where do as much, and what is more, succeed better. 
How is it that one considers the perusal of Corneille, 
Goethe, Byron as a serious occupation, and that the 
perusal of such and such a modern novel or drama 
is looked upon as merely a pastime ? For the same 
reason that the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews are 
serious periodicals and that the Magasin Pittoresque 
is a frivolous book. 

Therefore, to take up science as merely interesting 
and curious is to humiliate it. In that case Chris- 
tian asceticism would be perfectly right in its oppo- 
sition. The sole legitimate means of making one's 
self the apologist of science is to look upon it as the 



1 1 6 The Future of Science. 



essential element to human perfection. "The Imita- 
tion of Christ," after having begun like the " master 
of those who know " with the words ; " Every man is 
naturally desirous to know," was thoroughly right in 
adding; "But what is the use of science without love? 
Better by far the humble peasant who serves God, 
than the proud philosopher who watches the course 
of the stars and neglects himself. What is the use 
of the knowledge of things, the ignorance of which 
will not cause us to be condemned ? All is vanity, 
save the love of God and to serve Him." There 
is no gainsaying this, if science be conceived as a 
simple series of formulas, if perfect love be possible 
without knowledge. If we place perfection on one 
side, on the other vanity, how can one fail to follow 
perfection ? But it is this very division which is 
illegitimate, because perfection is impossible without 
science. The true way of worshipping God, is to 
know and to love that which is. 



Tlie Future of Science. 117 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Of all branches of human knowledge philology is the 
one of which it becomes most difficult to grasp the 
aim and the unity. Astronomy, zoology, botany 
have all a determined object in view. But what is 
that of philology ? The grammarian, the linguist, the 
lexicographer, the literary man in the special meaning 
of the word have, all of them, a right to the title of 
philologists, and we observe, in fact, between those 
various studies a connection sufficiently strong to 
enable us to call them by a common name. In one 
respect the words philology, philosophy, poesy and 
a good many others are very much alike ; in that 
their very vagueness is expressive. When after the 
manner of the logicians we look for a phrase equiva- 
lent to those comprehensive words, and which at the 
same time gives their definition, we become greatly 
embarrassed because they have neither in their ob- 
ject nor in their method any unique characteristic. 
Socrates, Diogenes, Pascal, Voltaire are termed 
philosophers ; Homer, Aristophanes, Lucretius, Mar- 
tial, Chaulieu and Lamartine are termed poets, but 
it is not easy to find the family link which unites 
minds so utterly different under the same name. 
Such appellations have not been coined according to 
preconceived and clearly defined notions ; they owe 
their origin to a process less fettered in its applica- 
tion and upon the whole more exact than that of 
artificial logic. These words designate regions of the 
human intellect between which we must be careful 



118 The Future of Science. 

not to trace lines of demarcation too hard and fast. 
Where does eloquence end, where docs poetry com- 
mence (52) ? Is Plato a poet, is he a philosopher ? 
Puerile questions, these, no doubt, seeing that what- 
soever name we give him he will be none the less 
admirable, and that genius does not work in the 
exclusive categories which language coins afterwards, 
and on the strength of his work. The whole differ- 
ence lies in a peculiar harmony, in a more or less 
sonorous ring with regard to which an experienced 
faculty never hesitates. . 

Antiquity, wiser in this respect and less distantly 
removed from the origin of these w^ords, was less 
embarrassed in their application. The very complex 
sense of its word grammar did not cause it the least 
hesitation. Since we have drawn up a map of science 
as it were we persist in assigning to philolog}^, to 
philosophy each, a place apart ; and yet they are 
less special sciences than different ways of treating 
things intellectual. 

At a time when the first question asked of the 
savant refers to the nature of his studies, and the 
results attained, philology can but find small favour. 
One understands the physicist, the student of chem- 
istry, the astronomer ; the philosopher is less well 
understood, and the philologist still less. The 
majority, wrongly interpreting the etymology of his 
name imagine that he only works on words (and 
what, say they, could be more frivolous ?) and never 
dream of distinguishing like Zeno the philologist from 
the logophile (53). The vague cloud that hangs over 
the object of his studies, that sporadic character as 
the Germans call it, that almost undefined latitude 
which embraces so many divers researches under the 
same name is apt to make one believe that he is 
only an amateur, who flits about amidst the variety 
of his works, and undertakes exploring expeditions 
into the past just as certain burrowing animals con- 
struct subterranean passages for the mere pleasure 
of constructing them. His place in the philosophical 



Tlie Future of Science. 119 

organization is as yet not sufficiently defined, his 
monographs keep on accumulating without any one 
perceiving their purport. 

Philology, in tact, seems at the first glance only 
to offer an ensemble of studies without any scientific 
unity. Everything that contributes to restore or to 
illustrate the past has the right to a place in it. 
Understood in its etymological meaning it should 
only include grammar, exegesis and criticism of texts. 
Works of pure learning, of archaeology, of aesthetic 
criticism should be excluded from it. But such ex- 
clusion would, however, not be natural at all. For 
there is the closest connection between these labours, 
they form, as a rule, part of the studies of the same 
individual, very often of the same work. To elimi- 
nate some of these from the ensemble of philological 
labours, would be to make an artificial and arbitrary 
scission in a natural group. Let us take, for in- 
stance, the school of Alexandria ; a few philosophical 
and theurgical speculations apart, are not all the 
labours of that school, even those which do not come 
directly under the head of philology, stamped with 
the same spirit, which one may call philological, 
a spirit it carries even into poetry and philosophy ? 
Would a history of philology be complete if it made 
no mention of Apollonius of Rhodes, of Apollodorus, of 
iElian, of Diogenes Laertius, of Athenaaus and other 
polygraphists, whose works are, however, far from 
being philological, even in the most restricted mean- 
ing ? If, on the other hand, we grant to philology its 
widest possible extension, where are we to stop ? 
If we do not look out, we shall be forcibly brought to 
include nearly the whole of the literature of thought 
into it. Historians, critics, polygraphists, the writers 
of literary history will have to find a place in it (54;. 
Such is the drawback, grave no doubt, but necessary 
withal and compensated for by great advantages, of 
separating in that way a group of ideas, belonging to 
the ensemble of the human intellect and to which it 
clings with every one of its fibres. Let us add that 



120 The Future of Science. 

the bearing of words changes with the revolution of 
things and that in the appreciation of their meaning 
we should only be guided by their central notions, 
without trying to imprison those notions in formulas 
which are never their perfect equivalents. When it 
becomes a question of ancient literature, criticism 
and erudition enter by right into the framework of 
philology ; on the other hand the historian of modern 
philology will not deem it incumbent upon him to 
speak of our grand collections of civil and literary 
history, nor of those brilliant works of aesthetic criti- 
cism that have attained the level of the noblest 
philosophical creations (55). 

Therefore, the field of the philologist can no more 
be defined than that of the philosopher, for both in 
fact are occupied not with a distinct object, but with 
all things from a special standpoint. The true philo- 
logist must be at once a linguist, a historian, an 
archaeologist, an artist and a philosopher, Every- 
thing assumes to him a meaning and a value, in view 
of the object he sets himself, and which renders 
serious the most frivolous things distantly or closely 
connected with it. Those who like Heyne and Wolf 
have confined the role of the philologist to the re- 
production in its purely scientific domain, and as in 
a living library, of every trait of the ancient world 
(56), do not appear to have understood the full extent 
of their range. The aim of philology does not lie 
within itself ; it has its value as a necessary con- 
dition of the history of the human intellect and the 
study of the past. No doubt a good many philolo- 
gists whose learned studies have thrown open an- 
tiquity to us, saw no further than the text they 
interpreted and around which they .grouped the 
myriad spangles of their brilliant learning. In this, 
as in every other science, the natural curiosity of the 
human intellect coming to the aid of the philo- 
sophical spirit and supporting the patience of investi- 
gators has no doubt had its use. 

A great many people feel inclined to laugh when 



The Future of Science. 121 

they find grave intellects take an enormous deal of 
trouble in explaining grammatical peculiarities, col- 
lect glossaries, compare the variorum editions of some 
ancient author whose only claim to notice often lies 
in his oddity or mediocrity. All this arises through 
not having understood in a sufficiently wide sense the 
history of the human intallect and the study of the 
past. Human intelligence after having traversed 
a certain space likes to retrace its steps to behold 
once more the road along which it has travelled, to 
chew the cud of its own thoughts. The first creates 
did not look behind them, thsy marched onward, 
without any other guide than the eternal principles 
of human nature. But, on the other hand, humanity 
reaches a certain stage, when books have sufficiently 
accumulated to be collected and compared, and then 
the mind will only proceed with a full knowledge 
of facts ; it wants to confront its work with that of 
bygone ages ; that day witnesses the birth of the 
literature of thought, and parallel with it, the birth of 
philology. The apparition, therefore, is not, as has 
been said, a sign of the death of various literatures, 
it merely bears witness to their having accomplished 
already one life. Greek literature was manifestly not 
dead in the age of the Pisistratidae when the philo- 
logical spirit shows itself already so characteristic. 
In the Latin and French literatures, the philological 
spirit was the forerunner of the grand productive 
epochs. China, India, Arabia, Syria, Greece, Rome, 
the modern nations have all known the moment when 
the labour of the intellect from being spontaneous 
becomes scientific and no longer proceeds without 
consulting the archives deposited in museums and 
libraries. The development of the Hebrew people 
itself which previous to Christ appears to offer less 
trace than any other of intellectual activity, shows 
in its decline perceptible vestiges of that spirit of 
comparison, of collecting, of " patching up " if I 
may so call it, which terminates the original life of 
all literatures. 



122 The Future of Science. 

These considerations would, it appears to me, be 
sufficient as an apology for the philological sciences. 
Nevertheless, they are, in my opinion, very secondary 
indeed, when we come to consider the new position 
which the development of contemporary philosophy 
ought to grant to these studies. It wants but one 
step more for science to be proclaimed the true philo- 
sophy of humanity, and the science of a being who is 
in a perpetual condition of " to be " can only be the 
history of that being. The history of the human 
intellect not merely inquisitive but theoretical, that 
is the philosophy of the nineteenth century. 

And it so happens that this study is only possible 
through the direct study of monuments, and that 
those monuments "cannot be got at" without the 
special researches of the philologist. Certain forms 
of the past are each in itself sufficient to occupy 
a laborious existence. An ancient language, often 
utterly unknown, an isolated palaeography, an archae- 
ology and a history painfully deciphered, each of 
these is assuredly more than enough to engross all 
the efforts of the most patient investigator, unless 
humbler workers have given protracted labour to the 
digging from the quarry and to the presentation in an 
aggregate for his appreciation of the materials with 
which he is to reconstruct the edifice of the past (57). 
In the opinion of posterity, such and such a ponderous, 
mediocre, but patient intellect, who has contributed 
one important stone to this gigantic work will perhaps 
occupy a loftier standpoint than such and such a 
speculative mind of secondary order, who called him- 
self a philosopher and who did nothing but talk about 
the problem, without providing a single new datum 
to its solution. The revolution which since 1820 has 
completely changed the aspect of historical studies, 
or which, to speak more correctly has really founded 
the science of history among us, is obviously as 
important a fact as the apparition of a new system. 
Well ; would the works of a Guizot, a Thierry, a 
Michelet, works so full of originality, would they 



The Future of Science. 123 

have been possible without the Benedictine collections 
and other preparatory labours ? Mabillon, Muratori, 
Baluze, Da Cange were not great philosophers, and 
still they have done more for true philosophy than a 
good many empty and systematic minds who wanted 
to build the fabric of things on air. and of whom not 
a single syllable will remain among our final acqui- 
sitions. I am not alluding here to works in which 
the most solid learning is wedded to a subtle or lofty 
criticism, such as for instance the last volumes of 
" L'histoire litteraire de la France " " L'Essai sur le 
Buddhisme " of M. Eugene Burnouf, " L'Archeologie 
Indienne " of M. Lassen, "La Grammaire Comparee " 
of M. Bopp, or " Les Beligions de l'Antiquite " of M. 
Gnigniaut. As for myself I have no hesitation in 
saying that I have got more things philosophical out 
of each one of these works than from the whole of 
the collected works of Descartes and of his school. 
But I am speaking of those works of a severer cha- 
racter which the profane consider as unreadable, 
such as for instance ; Catalogues of Manuscripts, 
grand compilations, "Libraries" like that of Fabricus, 
etc. ; etc. Well I maintain that such books, almost 
insignificant in themselves, have a priceless value if 
looked upon as materials fcr the history of the human 
intellect. Ten thousand volumes of philosophy like 
the " Lessons " of La Bomiguiere or the " Logique " 
of Port-Boyal might burn before my eyes, and I 
should prefer to save " La Bibliotheque Orientale " of 
Assemani or the " Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana " of 
Casiri. For philosophy always benefits by taking up 
things ab integro, and aftar all the philosopher can 
always say; " Omnia mecum jporto;" whereas the 
noblest genius in the world could not restore to me 
the documents in these collections bearing upon 
Syriac and Arabic literature, two very secondary facets, 
no doubt, but still, two facets of the human intellect. 
It is very easy to ridicule those attempts at re- 
storing obscure literatures, often of but mediocre 
value. The error arises from the fact of not under- 



124 Tlie Future of Science. 

standing the whole extent, the infinite variety of the 
science of the human intellect. A learned disciple 
of M. Burnouf, M. Foucaux has for the last few years 
tried to introduce into France the study of Thibetic. 
I should not be surprised in the least bat that his 
praiseworthy enterprise has akeady caused many an 
epigram to be flung at him ; well I declare, I, that 
M. Foucaux is doing more meritorious work with 
regard to the philosophy of the future than three 
fourths of those who claim the position of philo- 
sophers and thinkers. When Mr. Hodgson dis- 
covered in the monasteries of Nepaul the primitive 
monuments of Indian Buddhism, he did greater 
service to thought than a generation of scholastic 
metaphysicians could have done. He provided one 
of the most essential elements to the explanation of 
the Gospel and Christianity by revealing to criticism 
one of the most curious religious apparitions and the 
only fact possessing a close analogy to the grandest 
phenomenon in the history of humanity. He who 
should bring us back from the East a few works in 
Zend or Pehlvi, who should make known to Europe 
the epic poems and the whole of the civilization of 
the Rajpoots, who should make his way into the 
libraries of the Djains of Guzerat, who should give us 
an exact knowledge of the books of the Gnostic sect 
which is still being preserved under the name of 
Meucleans or Nasoreans, he who should do all this 
would be certain to have contributed an imperishable 
stone to the grand fabric of the science of humanity. 
Where is the abstract thinker who can make sure of 
a similar satisfaction ? 

Hence, it is in philosophy that we must look for 
the real value of philology. Each branch of human 
knowledge has its special results which it brings as a 
tribute to the general science of things and to uni- 
versal criticism, one of the first needs of thinking 
man. Herein lies the dignity of all special research 
and of the last details of learning which have no 
meaning for the frivolous and light-minded. Looked 



The Future of Science. 125 

at in this light, there is no such a thing as trivial or 
useless research. There is no study, however unim- 
portant its object may seem, but what brings its ray 
of light to the science of the whole, to the true philo- 
sophy of the realities. The general results which 
alone, we are bound to admit, have a value in them- 
selves, and are the final aim of science, become only 
possible by the 'means of knowledge, and of learned 
knowledge of details. We go further still and say 
that the general results not based on the knowledge 
of the latest details are necessarily hollow and arti- 
ficial; whereas special researches, even if destitute of 
the philosophical spirit may be of the greatest value 
if they are exact and conducted according to a severe 
method. The spirit of science is that intellectual 
communion which links the scholar to the thinker, 
gives to each his deserved glory and establishes the 
point of convergence at which their several labours 
meet at last. 

The union of philology and philosophy, of learning 
and thought should, therefore, be the characteristic 
of the intellectual labour of our age. It is either 
philology or learning which will provide the thinker 
with that forest of things (silva rerum ac sententiarum, 
as Cicero has it) without which philosophy will never 
be aught else than a Penelope w r eb which will 
constantly have to be recommenced. We must once 
for all abandon the attempt of the old school, to con- 
struct the theory of things by the play of formulas 
void of all spirit, just as if by manipulating the 
shuttle of the weaver without putting thread into it, 
we should pretend to manufacture linen, or by setting 
a mill into motion without providing corn we should 
expect to get flour. The thinker implies the scholar ; 
and if it were only for the sake of the severe training 
of the mind, I should set very little store by the 
philosopher who had not for once in his life worked 
at the elucidation of some special point of science. 
No doubt the roles may be divided and such division 
is often desirable. But there should be at any rate 



126 The Future of Science. 

a close commerce between these various functions, 
the works of the scholar should no longer remain 
buried among the mass of learned collections, where 
for all the good they do, they might just as well not 
exist at all ; the philosopher on the other hand should 
no longer insist upon evolving from his own con- 
sciousness the vital truths of which the sciences 
outside possess such enormous wealth for him who 
explores them intelligently and critically. 

Whence come so many novel views on the progress 
of the different literatures and the human intellect, 
on spontaneous poetry, on the primitive ages, 
unless they have sprung from the patient study of 
barren detail? Would Vico, Wolf, Niebuhr and 
Strauss have been able to endow thought with so 
many new views, without the possession of most 
minute erudition ? What if not erudition, has opened 
to us the worlds of the East, the knowledge of 
which has made possible to us the comparative 
science of the developments of the human intellect ? 
Why is one of the noblest geniuses of modern 
times, Herder, so frequently inexact, chimerical, 
inaccurate in his treatise on the "Poetry of the 
Hebrews," in which he has put forth all his soul, 
unless it be because he failed to support that ad- 
mirable aesthetic sense with which he was gifted by 
scientific criticism ? From this point of view the 
study even of the follies of the intellect has its 
value as regards history and psychology. Many 
important problems of historical criticism will not be 
solved until an " intelligent " scholar shall have 
devoted his life to the dissection of the Talmud and 
the Cabbala. If Montesquieu in classifying the laws 
of the Eipuariaus, Visigoths and the primitive Bur- 
gundians was justified in comparing himself to Saturn 
devouring stones, what will have to be the strength 
of the mind capable of digesting such a farrago? And 
still, there might be extracted from it a number of 
data exceeding valuable to the history of comparative 
religion. 



17ie Future of Science. 127 



Ever since the fifteenth century the sciences 
having for their ohject the human intellect and its 
works have made no discovery to be compared to 
that which has revealed to us in India an intellectual 
world of marvellous wealth, variety and depth, in 
one word, another Europe. If we review our most 
settled ideas in comparative literature, in linguistic 
knowledge, in ethnography, in criticism we shall find 
the whole of them stamped and modified by this grand 
and capital discovery. As far as I am concerned, I 
find few elements of my thoughts whose roots are 
not deeply planted in that sacred ground, and I aver 
that no philosophical creation has furnished so many 
living parts to modern science as this patient restora- 
tion of a world the existence of which was not so 
much as suspected. Here then we meet with a 
series of essential results introduced into the current 
of the human intellect by philologists, and scholars, 
men by whom the partisans of the a priori would no 
doubt set little store. What then will it be when 
this mine, scarcely touched, shall have been worked 
in every direction ? What will it be when every 
nook and corner of the human intellect shall have 
been explored and compared in a like way? And 
philology alone is capable of accomplishing this task. 
Anquetil-Duperron was undoubtedly a patient and 
zealous student. Why did all his works have to be 
"propped up" as it were and radically reformed? 
Because he was not a philologist. 

One might fancy that the very fact of summoning 
erudition to renewed intellectual activity implies its 
being exhausted and that we are assimilating our 
century to those epochs when literature, no longer 
capable of producing anything original, becomes 
critical and retrospective. There would be no doubt 
of this, if our erudition were nothing more than a 
dead and meaningless letter, if like some narrow 
intellects we looked for nothing else in the know- 
ledge and admiration of the works of the past than 
the pedantic right of despising the works of the 



128 The Future of Science. 

present. But in addition to our creations being 
more spirited than those of the ancients, and apart 
from the fact of every modern nation possessing 
sufficient sap for two or three engrafted literatures, 
our manner of conceiving philology is very much 
more philosophical and fruitful than that of antiquity. 
Philology is not with us, as in the school of Alex- 
andria, the mere curiosity of the erudite man ; it is 
an organized science having a loity and serious aim ; 
it is the science of the productions of the human in- 
tellect. I am not afraid of exaggerating in saying 
that philology inseparably hound up with criticism is 
one of the most essential elements of the modern 
spirit, that without philology the modern world would 
not be what it is, and that philology constituted the 
vast difference between the Middle Ages and modern 
times. If we surpass the Middle Ages in clearness, 
in precision, in criticism, it is due solely to philo- 
logical education. 

The Middle Ages worked as much as we do, the 
Middle Ages produced intellects, as active, as pene- 
trating as ours ; the Middle Ages had their philoso- 
phers, their savants, their poets ; but it had no 
philologists (58) ; hence that lack of criticism which 
reduced them to the condition of intellectual infancy. 
Impelled towards antiquity by that urgent need which 
impels all the neo-Latin nations towards their intel- 
lectual origin, it was unable to get at the truth for 
want of the necessary instrument (59). There were 
as many Latin authors and as few Greek authors in 
the West at the time of Vincent of Beauvais as at 
the time of Petrarch. And yet Vincent of Beauvais 
knows nothing of antiquity, he possesses only a few 
insignificant and detached scraps of it, lacking 
coherent sense, constituting no spirit. Petrarch, on 
the other hand, who as yet has not read Homer, but 
who has a manuscript of him in the original language, 
who worships him without understanding him (60), 
has instinctively guessed the spirit of antiquity ; he 
himself has its spirit to a degree as eminent as any 



The Future of Science, 129 

savant of the subse juent centimes ; he understands 
with his soul that which he cannot grasp literally, 
his enthusiasm is aroused by an ideal, the worth of 
which he can only surmise. It is because the philo- 
logical spirit makes its first appearance in him. That 
is why he should be considered the founder of the 
modern spirit in criticism and literature. He is the 
landmark between inexact fragmentary and mere 
material knowledge, and comparative, delicate and in 
one word, critical knowledge. Is the faulty under- 
standing of the philosophy of the ancients by the 
Middle Ages, for instance, to be attribute 1 to in- 
sufficient study? Who would dare to affirm such a 
thing of the century that prod iced the vast com- 
mentaries of an Aluerais Magnus, of a Thomas 
Aquinas? Is it for lack of sufficie it documents? 
Not at all. It had the complete materials of the 
Peripatetic philosophy, that is, the philosophical 
encyclopedia of antiquity ; it had fu -thertnore nu- 
merous documents on Platonism, and had the works 
of Cicero, Seneca, Macrobius, of Uha'cidius, and the 
commentaries on Aristotle afforded it almist as much 
information on the philosophy of the ancients as we 
ourselves possess. What then did they lack, those 
laborious workers who devoted so many vigils to that 
deep study? They lacked that which the Benaissance 
possessed ; philology. If instead of wasting their 
lives on barbarous translations and sacond-hand 
works, the scholastic commentators had mastered 
Greek and read in the original text, Aristotle, Plato, 
Alexander Aphrodisiensis, the fifteenth century 
would have been spared the spect icle of the war 
between two Aristotles, the one left solitary and 
forgotten in his original pages, the other artificially 
created by successive and scarcely perceptible devia- 
tions from the primitive text. The original texts of 
a literature are its true and complete presentment. 
Translations and second-hand renderings are en- 
feebled copies and always leave gaps which the 
imagination takes upon itself to fill up. In pro- 



130 The Future of Science. 

portion to the copies belonging to a period removed 
from the original and getting reproduced in still 
more imperfect copies, the gaps increase, conjectures 
become multiplied and the true colour of things 
vanishes. The classical translations of the sixteenth 
century were to antiquity, as the Aristotle and the 
Galen of the Faculties, for which pupils and pro- 
fessors were referred to the traditional class books, 
to the real Aristotle, to the real Galen, as Greek 
culture to the insignificant fragments collected after 
other compilers by Martinus Capella or Isidore of 
Seville. It is neither original production nor the 
inquiring interest into the past, nor the perseverance 
to work that the Middle Ages lack. The literati of 
the Renaissance were superior neither in penetration 
nor in application to an Alcuin, an Allain of Lille, 
an Alexander of Hales, a Eoger Bacon. But they 
were more critical, they enjoyed the advantages 
of the progress made in their times and of the know- 
ledge acquired, they benefited by the favourable 
circumstances which successive events had brought 
about. It has been the fate of philology as well as 
of every other science to be inseparably linked to 
the march of things, and to be unable to accelerate 
by a single day by the effort of its own will the pro- 
gress to be accomplished. 

This aKpicr'ia then may be taken as the general 
character of the knowledge of antiquity in the Middle 
Ages, or to be more exact, of the whole intellectual 
condition of that period. Politics as well as litera- 
ture had its share of it. Those fictions of kings, of 
patricians, of emperors, of Ccesars, of Augustuses, trans- 
ferred to rank barbarism ; those legends of Brut, 
of Francus, the opinion that all authority must 
necessarily date back to the Roman Empire, as all 
high nobility to Troy, the way of looking upon Roman 
law as absolute law, Greek knowledge as absolute 
knowledge, whence did all this come, if not from the 
rough "guesswork knowledge" of antiquity, from 
the semi-fantastic light by which that ancient world 



The Future of Science. 131 

was viewed, that ancient world to which they aspired 
to link themselves ? The modern spirit, that is, 
rationalism, criticism, liberalism, was founded on the 
same day that philology was founded. The founders 
of the modern spirit are the philologists. 

Philology constitutes also one of the claims to 
superiority of the moderns over the ancients. Anti- 
quity can show no noble type of philological philo- 
sopher in the style of Humboldt, Lessing, Fauriel. 
If some Alexandrian like Porphyrus and Longinus 
happen to add philology to philosophy, the two 
realms with them scarcely touch one another; philo- 
logy does not beget philosophy ; philosophy is not 
philological. What are Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
Aristarchus, Aphtonius, Macrobius compared to those 
subtle and excellent intellects which from a certain 
point of view constitute the philosophers of the nine- 
teenth century (61) ? What are questions like the 
following : " Why did Homer begin the catalogue 
of the ships with those of the Boeotians ? " " How 
could the head of Medusa be at one and the selfsame 
time in the nether regions and on the shield of a 
G-od ? " " How many rowers had Ulysses ? " What 
are questions like these and other problems that- 
supplied the subjects for the wrangling of the schools 
of Alexandria and Pergamos, w T hen compared to the 
ingenious, comprehensive and delicate way of 
examining every aspect of things, of culling the 
essence of every subject, of strolling through a corner 
of " the universal " like a many-sided observer, which 
nowadays we call criticism ? Such inferiority is, 
after all, easy to explain. The ancients lacked the 
means of comparison ; wherever they had sufficiently 
authentic documents at hand, as in the Homeric 
question, they left little for us to do, except in the 
higher criticism to which the comparison of the 
different literatures is indispensable. That is why 
their grammar is above all defective, because they 
only know their own language, and special gram- 
matical systems derive their life from general gram- 



132 The Future of Science. 

mar, and general grammar presupposes a comparison 
of idioms. The ancients were equal to the modern 
philologists most enamoured of their subjects in 
the mini;t3ness of their details and the patience of 
their comparisons. As for the criticism of texts, 
their position was far different to ours. They had no 
inventory of manuscripts of acknowledged authority 
and settled once for all to guide them, as we have. 
Hence they were compelled to think less than we 
do, of comparing and counting them. Aulas Gellius, 
for instance, in the critical discussions in which he 
frequently indulges argues nearly always a 'priori and 
appeals very seldom to the authority of ancient copies. 
Cicero said that Aristarchus rejected as interpolations 
such verses of Homer as did not please him (62). 
The imperfection of lexicography, the infant state of 
linguistic knowledge caused a great deal of uncer- 
tainty with regard to the exegesis of archaic texts. 
At the philological epoch the ancient tongue had 
already become a learned idiom, requiring special 
study, almost like the literal language of the far East, 
and it is not surprising that th,e moderns should often 
censure the interpretations of the ancient philo- 
logists, for they were scarcely more competent than 
we are as regards the scientific theory of their own 
language, and we have unquestionably hermeneutical 
means at our disposal which they had not (63). The 
ancients, in fact, knew no language but their own 
and only the classical and settled form of that 
language. 

But the inferiority of antiquity was above all per- 
ceptible in erudition. The want of elementary books, 
of manuals containing common and ordinary notions 
(64), of biographical, historical and geographical dic- 
tionaries, etc., threw back everyone upon his own 
researches, and multiplied errors even with the most 
skilful writers (65). Where should we be, if in order 
to learn history or geography, we were reduced to 
the scattered facts to be picked up in books that do 
not treat of such science ex professo ? The paucity 



The Future of Science. 133 

of books, the absence of indexes and concordances 
which so greatly facilitate our researches often com- 
pelled them to quote from memory, that is, in a very 
inaccurate manner. And last of all, the ancients had 
not the experience of a tolerab'y great number of 
literary revolutions to fall back upon ; they could not 
compare sufficiently many literatures to soar very high 
in aesthetic criticism. Let us remember that our 
superiority in that way only dates from a few years 
back. In this respect the anc.'ents were exactly on 
the level of our seventeenth ceLtuy. When one 
reads the opuscula of Dionysius of Halicarnassus on 
Plato, on Thucydides, on the style of Demosthenes, 
one might well fancy to be reading the " Memoirs " 
of M. and of Madame Dae i 3r and other worthy savants 
which fill up the first volumes of the Transactions 
of the Academre des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 
What artificiality, what puer'lity do not we meet 
with even in the " Treatise of the Sublime " itself, 
that is, in the besfc critical work of antiquity, a work 
that we may compare with the productions of the 
French school of the eighteenth century (66) ? Per- 
haps the very ages that know best how to produce 
the beautiful may know least how to give its theory. 
Nothing could be more insipid than what Eacine and 
Corneille have left us in the way of criticism. One 
is tempted to s y that they did not understand the 
beauties of their own works. 

To appreciate the value of philology we should 
not ask ourselves what is the worth of this or that 
obscure monograph, this or that note which the 
scholar crams in at the bottom of a page of his 
favourite author ; we have as much right to inquire 
about the use in natural history of this or that mono- 
graph on a certain variety lost among fifty thousand 
species of insects. We must consider the revolution 
philology has wrought ; we must examine what the 
human intellect was before the advent of philological 
culture, what it has become since it has felt the 
influence of this culture ; what changes the critical 



134 Tfie Future of Science. 

understanding of antiquity has wrought in the 
manner of inquiring practised by modern students. 
And, it seems to me that a carefully written history 
of the human intellect from the fifteenth century 
onwards would show that the most important revolu- 
tions of thought have been brought about by the 
men whom we should call litterateurs or philologists. 
At any rate there can be no doubt that such men 
have had a more direct influence than those properly 
called philosophers. When posterity shall regulate 
the ranks in the Pantheon of humanity according to 
the influence brought to bear on the progress of 
things, the names of Petrarch, of Voltaire, of Rous- 
seau, of Lamartine will no doubt take precedence of 
those of Descartes and Kant. The first reformers, 
Luther, Melanchthon, Eobanus Hessus, Calvin, all 
the abettors of the Pteformation, Erasmus, the 
Etiennes were philologists, the Reformation was born 
when philology was in full swiug. The eighteenth 
century, though superficial in erudition gets at its 
results much more by criticism, history and positive 
science than by metaphysical abstraction (67). Uni- 
versal criticism is the only characteristic one can 
assign to the delicate, fleeting, undefinable thought 
of the nineteenth century. By what name shall we 
call so many chosen intellects which without ab- 
stractedly dogmatizing have shown thought a new 
way of exercising itself in the world of facts? Let 
us take M. Cousin himself; is he a philosopher? 
No ; he is a critic who devotes himself to philosophy, 
as another devotes himself to history and another 
again to what we call literature. Criticism, then, is 
the form, in which in every field, the human intellect 
tends to exercise its faculties ; and if criticism and 
philology are not identical, they are at least insepar- 
able. To criticize is to assume the position of a 
spectator and a judge amidst the variety of things ; 
and philology is the interpreter of things, the means 
of entering into communication with them and of 
understanding their language. The day that phik- 



TJie Future of Science. 135 



logy should perish, criticism would perish with it, 
barbarism would be born again, credulity would be 
once more the mistress of the world. 

That immense mission which philology has under- 
taken in the development of the modern spirit is far 
from accomplished ; it is perhaps only at its begin- 
ning. Has rationalism which is the general result of 
the whole of philological culture penetrated among 
the masses of mankind ? Strange beliefs, which 
cause the critical sense to revolt, are not they gulped 
down like water even by distinguished intellects ? 
Is there a widespread sense of psychological laws, or 
at any rate does it sufficiently influence the turn of 
thought or ordinary speech ? The sane view of 
things, which is not the result of an argument, but 
of an entire system of critical culture, of a complete 
intellectual training, is it the view accepted by 
the greatest number ? The mission of philology is 
to accomplish this task in concert with the physical 
sciences. To dissipate the mist which envelops the 
world of thought as well as that of nature to the 
ignorant, to substitute for the fantastic imaginations 
of the primitive dream, the clear perceptions of the 
scientitic age, that is the common goal to which 
those two orders of research so powerfully converge. 
Nature is the word in which they are summed up. 
I repeat, all this is not the outcome of an isolated 
demonstration ; all this is the result of a clear and 
unbiassed glance cast at the world, of the intellectual 
habits begotten of modern methods. Two roads, 
which make but one, lead to the direct and pragmatic 
knowledge of things ; the physical sciences to that 
of the physical world, the science of mental facts to 
that of the intellectual world. And for this science 
I can find no other name than that of philology. 
All supernaturalism will receive its death-blow from 
philology. The supernatural only holds its ground 
in France because France is not philological. 

When I question myself with regard to the most 
important and the most definitely acquired articles 



136 The Future of Science. 

of roy scientific creed, I place in the front rank my 
ideas on the constitution and the mode of govern- 
ment of the universe, on the essence of life, its 
development and phenomenal natr.rj, on the sub- 
stantial foundation of all things and its everlasting 
delimitation in transient forms, on the apparition of 
humanity, the primitive facts of its history, the laws 
of its progress, its aim and its end, on the meaning 
and the value of things aesthetic and moral, on the 
right of every living being to light and the attain- 
ment of the perfect, on the eternal beauty of human 
nature expanding at every point of space and on the 
duration of immortal poems (religion, art, temples, 
myths, virtues, science, philosophy, etc.), in short 
on the divine part which is in everything, which 
constitutes the right to existence and which suitably 
brought to light, constitutes the beautiful. Is it by 
reading this or that philosopher that I have formu- 
lated to myself things in this way ? Is it by the 
a priori hypothesis ? No ; it is by the universal 
experimentalizing of life, — it is by pushing forward 
my thoughts in all directions, in scouring every tract, 
in analyzing and digging deeply into all things, in 
watching the successive development of the waves 
of that eternal ocean, in casting a friendly and in- 
quisitive glance here and there. I am convinced of 
owing everything to experiment ; but it is impossible 
for me to say by which road I arrived at it, out of 
what elements I have composed this whole (which, 
no doubt, may possess very little value, bat which 
after all is my life). A balancing of all things, an 
inmost tissue, a vast equation of which the variable 
quantity constantly oscillates owing to the accession 
of new T data, such are the images by which I endeavour 
to represent to myself the fact, without being satis- 
fied. I feel that I have benefited as much in the 
formation of my general conception of things by the 
study of Hebrew or Sanskrit as by the reading of 
Plato ; by the perusal of the poem of Job or the 
Gospel, of ."Revelations or of a Moallaca, of the 



The Future of Science. 137 

Baghavat-Gita or the Koran, as by Leibnitz, Hegel, 
Goethe or Lamartine. Nevertheless, it is neither 
Mann nor Kulluku-Bhatta, Antar nor Beidhawi ; it is 
not the knowledge of the sheva and the virama, of 
the Kal and the Niphal, of the Parasmaipadam and 
the Attmanepadam that has given me my philosophy. 
But it is the general and critical view, it is the uni- 
versal induction ; and I feel that, if I had ten human 
lives to live in parallel, so as to be able to explore all 
the worlds, I being there in the centre, sniffing the per- 
fume of all things, judging and comparing, combining 
and inducting, I should get at the system of things 
(68). "Well, that which no individual can accomplish, 
humanity will accomplish ; for it is immortal, and 
everyone works for it. Humanity will succeed in 
fathoming the- true physiognomy of things, that is; the 
truth in all order of things. And who, after that, 
will dare to say that those who have contributed to 
that immense work, who shall have polished one of 
the facets of that diamond, who shall have removed 
a particle of the dross that dims its native brilliancy, 
are only pedants, idlers, ponderous intellects who 
waste their time, and who being unfit to carve their 
way in the world of the living took refuge in that of 
mummies and graveyards. 

To philosophize is to know things ; it is according 
to the beautiful phrase of Cuvier, to instruct the world 
in theory. I believe with Kant that every purely 
speculative demonstration has no more value than a 
mathematical demonstration and can teach us no- 
thing with regard to existing reality. Philology (69) 
is the exact science of things intellectual. It is to 
the sciences of humanity as physics and chemistry 
to the philosophical science of matter. 

This has not been sufficiently understood by an 
intellect otherwise eminent by its originality and its 
honourable independence ; M. Auguste Comte. It 
is strange that a man, above all preoccupied with the 
method of the physical sciences and aspiring to 
transfer this method to the other branches of human 



138 The Future of Science. 

knowledge, should have conceived in the narrowest 
fashion the science of the human intellect and of 
humanity and should have applied to it the coarsest 
method. 

M. Comte has failed to understand the infinite 
variety of this shifting, capricious, multiple, unde- 
finable material, which is human nature. Psychology 
is to him an aimless science ; the distinction between 
psychological and physiological facts, the contempla- 
tion of the mind by itself an illusion. Sociology is 
the summary of all the sciences of humanity, and 
sociology to him is not the earnest and patient ascer- 
tainment of all the facts of human nature ; sociology 
is not (I am quoting M. Comte's own words) that 
incoherent compilation of facts which we call history 
and over which presides the most radical irrational- 
ism. It merely borrows examples from this indiges- 
tible compilation after which it sets to work on its 
own account without paying heed to literary know- 
ledge, considered as very useless. Hence, M. Comte's 
method with regard to the sciences of humanity is 
the purely a priori one (70). M. Comte, instead of fol- 
lowing the infinitely flexible lines of human societies, 
their offshoots, their apparent whimsicalities, instead 
of calculating the definite resultant of this immense 
oscillation aspires from the very first to a simplicity 
which the laws of humanity present even to a less 
degree than the laws of the physical world. M. 
Comte proceeds exactly like the hypothetic natu- 
ralists who forcibly reduce to the straight line the 
numerous ramifications of the animal world. When 
he has tried to prove that the human intellect pro- 
ceeds from theology to metaphysics and from meta- 
physics to positive science his task as far as the 
tracing of the history of humanity goes is virtually 
at an end. Morality, poetry, religion, mythology, all 
these occupy no place whatsoever in his system, all 
these are pure fantasy without the least value. If 
human nature were such as it is conceived by M. 
Comte, every noble soul would hasten to commit 



The Future of Science. 139 

suicide ; it would not be worth while wasting one's 
time to turn the handle of such an insignificant piece 
of mechanism. True, M. Comte believes with us that 
one day science will endow humanity with a creed ; 
but the science in his " mind's eye " is that of 
Galileo, of Newton, of Descartes, remaining as it 
is. On that day, the Gospel, poetry would be super- 
fluous. M. Comte thinks that man lives exclu- 
sively upon science ; nay, upon little scraps of phrases, 
like the theorems of geometry, barren formulas. 
Unfortunately for M. Comte he has a system and 
he does not take up a sufficiently commanding stand- 
point on the field of the human intellect, open 
to every breeze that blows. To pretend to write 
the history of the human mind, one must have very 
extensive literary attainments. The laws in this 
instance being of a very delicate nature and not 
presenting themselves broadside, the faculty most 
essential is that of the literary critic, of the delicate 
turn (it is generally the turn which expresses most), 
the subtlety of perception, in short, the very reverse 
of the geometrical spirit. What would M. Comte 
think of a physicist who should be content to observe 
in the aggregate the physiognomy of natural facts, 
of the student of chemistry who should neglect the 
theory of equilibrium? And does not he commit a 
similar error when he proclaims as useless all those 
patient explorations in the past, when he declares it 
to be a waste of time to study those centres of civili- 
zation which have no direct connection with ours, 
when he says that it is only necessary to study 
Europe in order to determine the law of the human 
mind and then to apply this law a priori to the other 
developments? In this M. Comte is much more 
influenced than he thinks by the old historical theory 
of the Four Empires, the germ of which may be 
found in the non-canonical book of Daniel (71), and 
which since the days of Bossuet has been the 
foundation of Catholic teaching. He imagines that 
humanity has really traversed the three conditions of 



140 The Future of Science. 

fetichism, of polytheism, of monotheism, that the 
first men were cannibals, like the savigcs, etc. As 
it happens, this is not to be admitted for a moment. 
The fathers of the Semitic iace had from their origin 
a seciet tendency to monotheism; the Vedas, those 
matchless songs, really afford the idjas of the original 
aspirations of the Indo-Geimanio rice. Among these 
races, morality dates from the Vjry first beginnings. 
In one word, M. Comte fails utterly to understand 
the sciences of humanity, because he is not a philo- 
logist. 

M. Proudhon, though rereptive to every idea, on 
account of the extreme pliability of his mind and 
capable of understanding in turns the most diverse 
aspects of things, does not seem to me to have con- 
ceived science in a sufficiently broad manner. No 
one better than he has understood that science alone 
is henceforth^o.s'Si$/<3, but his s ience is neither poetic 
nor religious ; it is too exclusively abstract and 
logical. M. Proudhon is as yet not sufficiently eman- 
cipated from the scholasticism of the seminary ; he 
argues a great deal, he does not appear to have under- 
stood sufficiently that in the sciences of humanity, 
logical argumentation means nothing and that 
delicate mental perception means everything. Argu- 
mentation is only possible in a science like geometry, 
where the principles are plain and absolutely true, 
without any restriction. But this is not the case 
in the moral sciences where the } rmciples are only 
of a " more or less " character, imperfect expressions, 
founded more or less, but never "in full," on the 
truth. In this instance the light thrown on to 
the idea is the only possible demonstration. The 
form, the style are three-fourths of the idea; and 
this is not an abuse of the idea as some puritans 
pretend. Those who inveigh against the style and 
beauty of form in philosophical and moral science 
strangely misconceive the true nature of the results 
of those sciences and the delicate nature of their 
principles. In geometry, in algebra, a man may 



The Future of Science. 141 

fearlessly abandon himself to the play of formulas, 
without worrying himself, in the course of the argu- 
ment, as to the realities which they represent. In the 
moral sciences, on the contrary, it is never allowed 
to trust one's self in that way to formulas, to combine 
them indefinitely as did the old theology, being 
certain that the result emanating from it, must be 
strictly true. It will only be logically true and may 
not even be as true as the principles ; for the conse- 
quence may happen to bear sclely on some error 
or misunderstanding that was in the principles, 
but sufficiently hidden to make the principle accept- 
able. Hence, it may happen that while arguing very 
logically, a man may arrive, in the moral sciences, at 
consequences absolutely false, though he started from 
principles sufficiently true. The books written to 
defend property by argument arj as bad as those that 
attack it by the same method. The truth is, that 
argument in that order of things should not be 
listened to, that the results of reasoning in that 
instance are only legitimate on the condition of being 
controlled at each step by immediate experience. 
And whenever we are led by logic to extreme con- 
sequences, we should not be frightened at them, for 
the facts " delicately perceived " are in that instance, 
the sole criterion of the truth. 



142 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

What then is the meaning of this superficial and idle 
contempt ? Why is the philologist, manipulating 
as he does, things human in order to extract from 
them the science of humanity, less understood than 
the student of chemistry and the physicist, manipu- 
lating nature, in order to get at the theory of nature ? 
No doubt the existence of the curious man of eru- 
dition who has spent his life in amusing himself 
learnedly and in treating serious things frivolously 
has been a profitless existence indeed. Men and 
women of the world are not altogether wrong in 
looking upon such a role as a mere clever trick 
of memory, suited to those who have only been 
endowed with second rate qualities. But theirs is 
a short and narrow view, in that they fail to perceive 
that the knowledge of many arts and sciences is the 
condition of the high aesthetic, moral, religious, 
poetical intelligence. A philosopher who thinks that 
he can evolve everything from his own bosom, that 
is, from the study of the soul and from purely 
abstract consideration must necessarily despise eru- 
dition and look upon it as prejudicial to the progress 
of reason. From this point of view, the fretful 
temper of Descartes, of Malebranche and of the 
Cartesians in general with regard to erudition is 
legitimate and accounted for by reason. Leibnitz 
was the first to realize in a magnificent harmony 
that elevated conception of a critical philosopher 
to which Bayle could not attain through insufficient 



The Future of Science. 143 

concentration of mind. The nineteenth century is 
destined to be called upon to realize it and to 
introduce the positive method in every branch of 
knowledge. M. Cousin's glory will lie in his having 
proclaimed criticism as a new method in philosophy, 
a method which may lead to results as dogmatic 
as abstract speculation. His eclecticism has only 
lost its strength when outward necessities, which he 
could not resist, have compelled it to embrace ex- 
clusively particular doctrines which have made it as 
narrow as they themselves are, and to screen itself 
behind certain names, which should be honoured 
otherwise than by fanaticism. Such was not the 
grand eclecticism of 1828 and 1829, and of the 
preface to Tennemann. The new philosophical 
generation will understand the necessity of transport- 
ing itself to the living centre of things, of no longer 
making philosophy a collection of speculations with- 
out unity, of restoring to it at last its ancient and 
hroad acceptation, its eternal mission of giving vital 
truths to man. 

Philosophy, in fact, is not a science apart, it is one 
side of all sciences. In each science we should 
distinguish the technical and special part, which has 
no value except in so far as it contributes to discovery 
and exposition, from the general results which the 
science in question provides on its own account 
towards the solution of the problem of things. Phi- 
losophy constitutes the common head, the central 
part of the grand fabric of human knowledge, the focus 
where all the rays touch one another in an identical 
light. There is not a line which traced to the very end 
does not lead to that focus. Psychology which one 
has become accustomed to consider as the whole of 
philosophy is after all one of many sciences, nay, it 
may not even provide the most philosophical results. 
Logic understood as the analysis of reason is only a 
parfc of psychology ; considered as a repertory of 
processes to lead the mind to the discovery of the 
truth, it is simply useless, seeing that it is impossible 



144 Tlie Future of Science. 

to give recipes for the discovery of truth. Eefined 
culture and the multiple training of the intellect are 
from this point of view the only legitimate logical 
methods. Morality and the theory of divine justice are 
not sciences apart, they become heavy and ridiculous, 
when one pretends to treat them according to a 
definite and scientific programme, they should only 
be the divine resonance resulting from all things or at 
most the aesthetic education of the pure instincts of 
the soul, the analysis of which belongs to psychology. 
By what right then can we constitute a whole, 
having the right to assume the name of philosophy, 
seeing that this whole, in the only limits one can 
assign to it, has already a particular name, that 
is psychology (72) ? Antiquity grasped this lofty 
and broad acceptation of philosophy in a marvellous 
manner. Philosophy was to it the sage, the investi- 
gator, Jupiter on Mount Ida, the spectator taking up 
his stand in the world. " Among those who rush to 
the public festivals of Greece, some are attracted by 
the wish to contest and to dispute the palm ; others 
come thither to transact their commercial business ; 
a few again come neither for glory, nor for profit, 
but merely to see ; and these are the noblest, for the 
spectacle is provided for them, and they are there for 
no one's sake but their own. So on entering life, 
some aspire to mingle in the strife, others are am- 
bitious to make a fortune ; but there are some noble 
souls who despise vulgar cares and while the common 
herd of combatants rend one another to pieces in 
the arena, look upon themselves as spectators in the 
vast amphitheatre of the universe. They are the 
philosophers (73)." — Never has philosophy been 
more perfectly defined. 

At the origin of rational research, the word 
" philosophy " might without causing inconvenience 
represent the whole of human knowledge. But when 
each of the series of studies became sufficiently exten- 
sive to absorb whole existences and to present a 
side of universal life, each branch became an inde- 



The Future of Science. 145 



pendent ■ science and left the common trunk im- 
poverished by those successive curtailments. The 
ripe fruits, having thrived upon the common sap 
became detached from the stalk and left the tree 
bereft. In that way philosophy only preserved the 
least defined notions, those which were unable to 
group themselves in distinct unities and which had 
no other reason for being united under one name 
than the impossibility of arranging each of them under 
another name. The time has come to revert to the 
acceptation of antiquity, assuredly not to confine 
once more all the sciences with their infinite details 
within philosophy, but to make it the common 
centre of the conquests of the human intellect, the 
arsenal of vital stores. Who will dare to say that 
natural history, comparative anatomy and physiology, 
astronomy, history and above all the history of the 
human intellect do not afford to the thinker results 
as philosophical as the analysis of the memory, of the 
imagination, of the association of ideas ? Who will 
dare to pretend that Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, 
the Humboldts, Goethe, Herder, had not as much 
right to the title of philosopher as Dugald Stewart 
or Condillac ? The philosopher means a mind 
sacredly inquisitive of all things : it is the gnostic in 
the primitive and elevated sense of that word ; the 
philosopher is the thinker, no matter what the object 
be on which he exercises his thought. 

No doubt the days are gone long ago when every 
thinker summed up his philosophy in a Hem (frvaecos. 
When we come to reflect that the human intellect 
in its legitimate impatience and naive presumption 
deemed itself able at the very outset to trace the 
system of the universe in a few pages, then the 
patient investigations of modern science, the in- 
numerable ramifications of the problems, the limit 
of research retreating before advancing discovery, in 
short the infinity of things — will warrant the belief 
that any " summary " of the world must be infinite 
as the world itself. An Aristotle would nowadays 

L 



146 Tlie Future of Science. 

be an impossibility. Not only has the alliance of 
psychological and moral studies with the physical and 
mathematical sciences become a rare phenomenon ; 
but a subdivision, even restricted as to its object, 
of a branch of human knowledge is often too vast 
a field for the labours of a laborious life and a 
deeply penetrating intellect. I do not say this in 
a critical spirit ; this onward march of science is 
legitimate. The strictness of scrupulous analysis 
should succeed to primitive syncretism, to vague and 
approximative study. The superficial study of the 
whole must make room for the deep and successive 
investigation of parts ; but we must guard ourselves 
against the belief that the circle of the human in- 
tellect closes there, and that the knowledge of par- 
ticulars is its final term. If the end of science were 
the counting of the spots on the wings of the butter- 
fly or the enumeration of the diverse species in the 
flora of a country, in a language often barbarous, it 
would be better, I think, to come back to the Pla- 
tonic definition and to declare that there is no such 
thing as a science of that which passes away. It 
is no doubt right that experimental studies should 
be wide enough to include the analysis of all the 
individualities of the universe, but on the condition 
of being one day gathered into a perfect synthesis, 
which will be much superior to the primitive syncre- 
tism, because it will he based on a distinct knowledge 
of parts. When dissection shall have been carried 
to its utmost limits (and we may believe that in 
some sciences tbat limit has been reached), then and 
not till then will begin the movement of comparison 
and reconstruction. We shall have had the humiliat- 
ing and laborious task ; nevertheless, when posterity 
shall have gone far beyond us by profitiDg by our work, 
the science of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies will perhaps incur as harsh a reproach for 
having been too minute and pragmatic as we reproach 
the ancients for having been too summary and 
hypothetical. It will only prove the difficulty of 



TJie Future of Science. 147 

knowing how to appreciate the necessity and legiti- 
macy of the successive revolutions of the human 
intellect. 

One consequence of this fragmentary and partial 
method of mcd rn science has been to banish from 
philosophy the co m >logy which at its origin almost 
wholly constituted the former. He whom we look 
upon usually as the founder of rational philosophy, 
Thales, would nowadays be no longer called a phi- 
losopher. We feel ourselves bound to divide into 
two or three parts scientific lives like those of 
Descartes and Leibnitz or even like that of Newton 
(albeit that with him the part of pure philosophy is 
already very much weaker), and still those lives have 
been perfectly " one " ; and the word by which their 
unity was expressed was that of philosophy. The 
time has, no doubt, gone by to appeal against this 
necessary elimination ; philosophy, after having held 
in its bosom all the nascent sciences has been 
compelled t) see them separate from it when they 
attained a sufficient degree of development. Will 
the day come when they shall return to it, not with 
the mass of their details, but with their general 
results ; the day when philosophy shall be less a 
science apart than a focus of all the sciences, a kind 
of luminous centre in which all branches of human 
knowledge will meet at their summit, diverging in 
proportion to their descent into details ? The regular 
law by which their progress takes its start from 
syncretism and gets to synthesis by way of analysis 
which alone is the legitimate method, which alone 
has a philosophic value, may warrant such hope, 
The appearance of a work like the u Cosmos " of M. 
von Humboldt, in which a single savant renewing 
in the nineteenth century the attempt of a Timseus or 
a Lucretius, reviews the Cosmos in its entirety proves 
that it is still possible to grasp once more the cosmic 
unity swamped by the infinite multitude of detail. 
If tiie final aim of philosophy be the truth on the 
general system oi things, how then could it remain 



148 The Future of Science. 

indifferent to the science of the universe ? Has not 
cosmology the same claim to holiness as the psycho- 
logical sciences ? Does not it start problems the 
solution of which is as imperatively demanded by our 
nature as that of questions related to ourselves and 
to the primary cause ? Is not the world the first 
object that excites the curiosity of the human in- 
tellect, is it not the first to whet the craving to 
know which is the marked trait of our rational 
nature, and which makes of us beings capable of 
philosophizing ? Take the mythologies, which give 
us the true measure of the spiritual needs of man ; 
they all open with a cosmogony ; the cosmological 
myths occupy a space in them at least as great as 
those relating to morals or theosophy. And even in 
our days though the particular sciences are far from 
having reached their final form, how many precious 
data have they not afforded to the mind that aspires 
to know philosophically ? He who has not learnt 
from geology the history of our globe and of the 
beings who have successively populated it ; from 
ph3 T siology the laws of life ; from zoology and botany, 
the laws of form of all breathing things, and the 
general plan of animate nature (7-1) ; from astronomy, 
the structure of the universe; from ethnogiaphy 
and from history, the science of humanity in its 
evolution ; he who has not learned this can he pre- 
tend to know the law of things, nay, to know man 
whom he only studies in the abstract and in indi- 
vidual manifestations ? 

I will endeavour to explain by an instance the 
manner in which one might use the particular sciences 
in the solution of a philosophical question. I select 
the problem which from the very first years that I 
began to philosophize has occupied my mind most; 
the problem of the origins of mankind. 

There can be no doubt as to the existence of 
mankind having had a beginning. It is equally 
certain that the appearance of mankind on earth was 
accomplished in accordance with the permanent laws 



The Future of Science. 149 

of nature (75), and that the first facts of his psycho- 
logical and physiological life, though so strangely 
different from those that characterize his actual 
condition were the development pure and simple of 
the laws that are still in force to-day, operating in a 
medium profoundly different. Hence we are con- 
fronted by an important problem, if ever there was 
one, and from the solution of which would spring data 
of capital importance on the whole of the meaning of 
human life. And in my opinion this problem should 
be divided into six subordinate questions all of which 
should be solved by different sciences. 

1st. Ethnographic Question. — If and up to what 
point the races actually existent are deducible from 
one another. Were there several centres of creation ? 
which are they, etc.? — The investigator should there- 
fore have at command the ensemble of the whole of 
modern ethnography, in its certain as well as hypo- 
thetical parts, also the anatomical and linguistic 
knowledge without which the study of ethnography 
is impossible. 

2nd. Chronological Question. — At what epoch did 
mankind or each race make its appearance on earth ? 
— -This question should be resolved by the collating 
of two means ; on the one hand, the geological 
data ; on the other, the data supplied by the antique 
chronologies and above all by the monuments. Henc*s 
the author must be learned in geology, and well 
versed in the antiquities of China, Egypt, of India, of 
the Hebrews, etc. 

3rd. Geographical Question. — At which point of the 
globe did mankind or the diverse races take their 
starting point ? — Here the knowledge of geography 
in its most philosophic part would be necessary and 
above all the deepest scientific knowledge of antique 
literatures and the traditions of the various peoples. 
Languages in this instance supplying the principal 
element the author should be an able linguist, or if 
not, he should at any rate have at his disposal the 
results acquired by comparative philology. 



150 The Future of Science. 

4th. Physiological Question. — Possibility and mode 
of apparition of organic life and of human life. The 
laws that have produced that apparition, which is 
still continued in the hidden corners of nature. To 
deal with this side of the question, a thorough know- 
ledge of comparative physiology is necessary. The 
author should be able to form an opinion on the most 
delicate point of that science. 

5th. Psychological Question. — The condition of man- 
kind and of the human intellect at the first stages 
of its existence. Primitive languages. Origin of 
thought and of language. Must have a deep in- 
sight into the secrets of spontaneous psychology, an 
habitual practice of the higher branches of psycholog}^ 
and philosophical sciences. Must be thoroughly 
versed in the experimental study of the child and the 
first exercise of its reason, in the experimental study 
of the savage, consequently must be extensively 
acquainted with the literature of the great travellers, 
and as much as possible have travelled himself among 
the primitive peoples which are fast disappearing from 
the face of the earth, at any rate in their original 
condition of spontaneous impulse ; must have a 
knowledge of all primitive literatures, of the com- 
parative genius of the various peoples, of comparative 
literature, a refined and scientific taste, tact, and 
spontaneous initiative ; a childlike and at the same 
time serious nature, susceptible of great enthusiasm 
with regard to the spontaneous and capable of repro- 
ducing it within himself, within the very seat of 
deeply reflected thought. 

6th. Historical Question. — The history of mankind 
before the definite apparition of reflected thought. 

I am convinced that there is a science of the 
origins of mankind, and that it will be constructed 
one day not by abstract speculation but by scientific 
research. What human life in the actual condition 
of science would suffice to explore all the sides of this 
single problem ? And still, how can it be resolved 
without the scientific study of the positive data *? 



The Future of Science. 151 

A.nd if it be not resolved bow can we say tbat we 
know man and mankind ? He wbo would contribute 
to tbe solution of tbis problem, even by a very im- 
perfect essay, would do more for pbilosopby than by 
half a century of metaphysical meditations. 



152 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE X. 

Psychology, such as it has been understood up till 
now, appears to me to have been conceived in rather 
too narrow a spirit and not to have yielded its most 
important results (76). First of all, it has generally 
confined itself to the study of the human intellect in 
its complete development and such as it appears 
nowadays. That which is done by physiology and 
anatomy for organized matter, psychology has done 
for the phenomena of the soul, of course with the 
differences of method required by objects so different 
in their nature. But, just as by the side of the 
science of the organs and their operations, there is 
another dealing with the history of their formation 
and development, so, by the side of ps} T chology which 
describes and classifies the functions of the soul there 
should be an embryogony of the human mind which 
would study the apparition and the first exercise of 
those faculties, the action of which, so regular now, 
makes us almost forget that at the start, they were 
only rudimentary. Such a science would no doubt 
be more difficult and hypothetic than that which 
simply confines itself to the observation of the present 
state of the conscience. Nevertheless, there are 
sure means that may lead us from the actual to the 
primitive state, and if direct experiments with regard 
to the latter are impossible, the method of induction 
bearirjg upon the present may bring us to the 
precedent condition of which the former is but the 
expansion. If, in fact, the primitive condition has 



The Future of Science. 1 5 3 

disappeared for ever, the phenomena characteristic of 
it have still their analogies among us. [Each indi- 
vidual travels in his turn along the line which the 
whole of mankind has followed, and the series of the 
development of human reason is exactly parallel to 
the progress of individual reason^ with the exception 
of old age, which will never be known by humanity, 
destined as it is to be for ever blossoming afresh into 
eternal youth. Hence, the phenomena of infancy 
present to us the phenomena of primitive man (77). 
On the other hand the onward march of humanity is 
not simultaneous in all its parts ; while in the one 
case it rises to sublime heights, in the other it 
still wallows in the mire which was its cradle, and 
such is the infinite variety that animates it, that at 
a given moment one might find in the different 
countries inhabited by man all the various ages we 
find disposed "in echelon" in its history. Races 
and climates produce simultaneously in humanity 
the same differences which time has shown succes- 
sively in the series of their developments. The 
phenomena which, for instance, marked the dawn of 
human consciousness, may be traced back again in 
the everlasting infancy of those non-perfectible races, 
which have remained as witnesses to what happened 
at the outset of man's existence. Not that we should 
absolutely maintain that the savage is the primitive 
man ; the infancy of the various human races must 
have differed very much according to the sky under 
which they were born. No doubt the wretched 
creatures who first stammered forth inarticulate 
sounds on the forbidding soil of Africa and Oceania 
were very unlike those simple and graceful beings 
that became the progenitors of the religious and theo- 
cratic race of the Semites and the vigorous ancestors 
of the philosophical and rational race of the Indo- 
Grermanic people. But those differences no more 
militate against general inductions than the varieties 
of character among individuals impede the psycho- 
logists' progress. Hence the infant and the savage 



154 The Future of Science. 

must be the great objects of study of him who would 
scientifically construct the primeval ages of humanity. 
How is it that people have failed to understand that 
there lies a science of the highest interest in the 
psychological observation of those races, which the 
civilized man superciliously neglects, and that those 
anecdotes reported by travellers which apparently are 
only fit to amuse children contain in fact the most 
profound secrets of human nature ? 

Science has a still more direct means of communi- 
cation with those distant ages ; the products them- 
selves of the human miud at its different epochs ; the 
monuments in which man has expressed himself, and 
which he has left behind to trace his footsteps. Un- 
fortunately, they only date from a period too near our 
own, and the cradle of humanity remains still wrapt 
in mystery. How, in fact, could man have bequeathed 
the testimony of an age when he was scarcely in 
possession of his own powers, and when having no 
past, he could bestow no thought upon the future ? 
But there is one monument in which are inscribed 
all the diverse phases of this marvellous Genesis, 
which in its thousand aspects represents each of 
the conditions, sketched in turns by humanity, a 
monument not of one epoch only, but each part of 
which, if we can only assign a date to it, contains 
the materials of all the previous centuries capable 
of being revealed by analysis ; an admirable poem 
which was born and developed with man, which 
accompanied him at each step and received the 
imprint of each of his different modes of thinking, 
of feeling. This monument, this poem is language. 
[The deep study of its mechanism and history will 
always prove the most efficacious means of mastering 
primeval psychology?] In fact, the problem of its 
origin is identical with that of the origin of the 
human mind, and thanks to it, we stand face to face 
with the primeval epoch like the artist who is to 
restore an antique statue in accordance with the 
mould in wmich its limbs were cast. No doubt, 



The Future of Science. 155 

primeval languages have as far as science is concerned, 
disappeared — disappeared together with the condition 
of humanity they represented, and no one will hence- 
forth be tempted to tire himself in their pursuit with 
such ancient linguistic knowledge as he may command, 
But it is not a mere hypothesis that, among the 
idioms, the knowledge of which has become possible 
to us, there are some that more than others have pre- 
served the trace of the various processes that presided 
at the birth and the development of language and 
which have undergoue a less complicated wear and tear 
of decomposition and reconstruction ; it is a result 
proven by the most elementary notions of compara- 
tive philology. It is well to remind people of this ; 
seeing that arbitrary whim could not possibly have 
played the smallest part in the invention and the 
formation of language. There is not a single one of our 
most time-worn dialects which is not connected by 
a more or less direct genealogy with one of the first 
attempts which themselves were the spontaneous crea- 
tion of all the human faculties, " the living product of 
the whole nrward man" (Fr. Schlegel). But who 
would be capable of finding the trace of the primeval 
world amidst that immense network of artificial com- 
plication with which certain languages have become 
enwrapped beneath the numerous layers of peoples 
and idioms which have absolutely been piled upon 
one another in certain countries ? Eeduced to such 
data, the problem would be insoluble. Fortunately 
there are other languages that have been less worked 
up by successive revolutions, that are less variable in 
their forms, and spoken by peoples doomed to remain 
stationary, with whom the motion of ideas has not 
necessitated constant modification in the instrument 
of ideas; they still remain as witnesses, not by any 
means, of the primeval language, nor even of a 
primeval language, but of the primitive process by 
means of which man succeeded in imparting to his 
thought an outward and social expression. 

Hence, we should have to crsate a primeval psy- 



156 The Future of Science. 

chology showing the tables [of facts of the human, 
intellect at its first awakening, the influences by 
which it was governed at first, the laws that governed 
its first manifestations.; Our vulgar mode of per- 
ception scarcely allows us to conceive the difference 
between that condition and ours, the wondrous 
activity secretly stored by those fresh and stirring 
organizations, those powerful but still obscured con- 
sciences, giving full and unfettered play to all the 
native energy of life's spring. Who can, in our 
reflective state, with our metaphysical refinements, 
and our senses that have become coarse, form a 
correct idea of the antique harmony, then existing 
between the thought and the sensation, between man 
and nature ? Looking back to that horizon where 
heaven and earth become confounded with one another, 
man was god, and the god was man. Alienated from 
himself, to use Maine de Biran's expression, man, as 
Leibnitz says, became the coucentiic mirror in which 
was depicted that nature from which he could scarcely 
distinguish himself. It was not a coarse materialism, 
only understanding, only feeling the physical ; it was 
not an abstract spiritualism substitutiug entities for 
life ; it was a high harmony, perceiving the one in 
the other, expressing by one another the two- worlds 
lying open before man. The sensitiveness (the sym- 
pathy with nature, Naturgefuhl as Fr. Schlegel says) 
was the more delicate, seeing that the rational faculties 
were the less developed. The savage possesses an 
amount of perspicuity, of curiosity that astonishes 
us ; his senses detect a thousand imperceptible shades 
that escape the senses or rather the attention of the 
civilized man. "Unfamiliar as we are with nature we 
only see uniformity there where nomadic or agricul- 
tural peoples have perceived numerous instances of 
individual originality. We must assume primeval 
man to have possessed an infinitely delicate tact 
which enabled him to grasp, with a finesse of which 
we can no longer form an idea, the qualities " to be 
felt " which were to be the basis of the nomenclature 



The Future of Science. 157 

of things. The faculty of interpretation which is 
simply an extremely great sagacity in perceiving a 
connection between things was more developed in 
them. They saw ever so many things at once. Nature 
spoke to them more intelligibly than she does to us, 
or rather they found in themselves a secret echo 
which replied to all those voices from without and 
reproduced them in articulations, in words. Hence 
those abrupt passages the trace of which is utterly 
lost to our slow and laboured systems. Who could 
once more seize upon those fleeting impressions ? 
Who could once more find the truant paths along 
which the imagination of primeval man travelled, the 
association of ideas that guided him in this work of 
spontaneous production, in which now man, then 
nature herself " spliced " the broken strand of analo- 
gies, and wove their reciprocal action in an indissoluble 
unity ? What shall we say of that marvellous intel- 
lectual synthesis, necessary to the creation of a 
metaphysical system like the Sanskrit language, a 
sweet and sensuous poem like the Hebrew ? What 
shall we say of that infinite liberty to create, of that 
boundless fancy, of that wealth, of that exuberance, 
of that complexity which is beyond our grasp ? We 
should not be capable of speaking Sanskrit, our most 
eminent musicians would fail to execute the octuple 
and nonuple quavers of the Song of the Illinois. Ye 
sacred ages, primeval ages of humanity, who can 
understand you ? 

In view of those strange productions of earlier 
ages, of those facts that seem outside the normal 
order of the universe, we are inclined to suppose 
specific laws that have now been abrogated. But 
there is no temporary government in nature ; the, 
same laws that govern the world to-day are those 
that have presided at its constitution. The for- 
mation of the different planetary systems and their 
preservation, the apparition of organized beings and 
of life, that of man and of conscience, the first feats 
of humanity were only the development of an aggre- 



158 The Future of Science. 

gate of physiological and psychological laws settled 
once for all, without the superior agent, who moulds 
his action according to these laws, having interposed 
a specially intentional will in the mechanism of 
things. No doubt everything springs from the pri- 
mary cause, but the primary cause does not act upon 
partial motives, by special manifestations of will, as 
Malebranche would say. What it has done is and 
remains the best, the means once established are and 
remain the most efficacious. But how, it will be said, 
can we explain facts so diverse by the same system ? 
Why do those strange facts that marked the origin of 
man no longer repeat themselves, if it be true that 
the laws which produced them still exist ? It is 
because the circumstances are no longer the same ; 
the incidental causes that determined those laws at 
their grand phenomenal moments do no longer exist. 
As a general rule we only formulate the laws of 
nature with a view to the actual condition, and the 
actual condition is only a particular case. It is like 
a partial equation drawn from a more general equa- 
tion by a special hypothesis. The general equation 
virtually contains all the others, and its truth lies in 
the special truth of all the others. 

It is the same with all the laws of nature. Applied 
amidst different surroundings, they produce altogether 
different effects, if the same circumstances present 
themselves, the same effects will reappear. Hence 
there are no two series of laws co-operating with one 
another in order to fill up their voids and to supply 
their individual insufficiency ; there is no interim in 
nature ; creation and preservation are wrought by 
the same means, operating under different conditions. 
Geology, after having appealed for a long while to 
causes different from those operating to-day, to ex- 
plain cataclysms and the successive phases of the 
globe, is coming back from every direction to proclaim 
that the actual laws were sufficient to produce these 
revolutions. Those conditions of life which appear 
to us fantastical because they were different from 



Hie Future of Science. 159 

ours, what strange combinations they must have 
wrought ! And when man appeared on this earth 
which was still in process of creation, without being 
suckled by a woman, nor tended by a mother, without 
the lessons of a father, without ancestors or father- 
land, can we form an idea of the astonishing facts 
that must have happened at the first awakening of 
his intellect, at the sight of that fruitful nature, 
whence he was beginning to oe divided. Those first 
apparitions of human activity must have been marked 
by an energy, a spontaneousness of which nothing 
nowadays can convey an idea to us. Necessity, in 
fact, is the real incidental cause of the exercise of all 
power. Man and nature went on creating as long as 
there was a void in the scheme of things, they 
forgot to create as soon as the need of it no longer 
compelled them. It is not that from that moment 
they were one power short ; but those productive 
faculties, which at the origin were exercised on an 
immense scale, henceforth deprived of nutrition, were 
reduced to an obscure role, and as it were, relegated 
to a back corner in nature. Thus for instance, 
spontaneous organization, which in the beginning 
brought forth everything that lives, is still preserved 
on an imperceptible scale on the lowest rungs of the 
animal ladder ; thus the spontaneous faculties of the 
human mind still live in the facts of the instinct, but 
they are lessened and almost stifled by reflected 
thought ; thus the creative spirit of the language is 
still met with in that which presides at its revolu- 
tions ; for the force that sustains life is in reality 
that which brings forth, and to develop is in one 
sense to create. If man were to 1 >se language, he 
would once mere create it. But hi finds it ready 
made, hence his productive force, in. default of an 
object, withers away like every faculty not exercised. 
The infant still possesses it before it is able to speak, 
but loses it as soon as science from without renders 
the creation from within useless. 

How, indeed, is it possible to reduce the science of 



ICO The Future of Science. 

man to a system by studying man in his age of 
reflection only, as Scotch psychology has done, when 
his originality is as it were effaced by artificial culture, 
when artificial motors have replaced the powerful 
instincts under the influence of which he formerly 
worked at his own development with so much energy? 
The second void with which I meet in psychology 
and which in the same way can be filled up only by 
the philological study of the works of the human 
mind is in its application to the mere individual, 
without ever rising to the consideration of humanity 
at large. If the immense historical development of 
the latter end of the eighteenth and the nineteenth 
centuries has been productive of any result at all, 
it is that which proves that there is a life of 
humanity just as there is a life of the individual ; 
that history is not a purposeless series of isolated 
facts, but a spontaneous tendency towards an ideal 
goal, that the perfect is the centre of gravity of 
humanity as of everything that lives (78). Hegel's 
claim to immortality consist? in having been the 
first to express with perfect clearness this vital force 
which neither Vico nor Montesquieu had noticed, of 
which even Herder had but the vaguest notion. 
Through this he has insured for himself the title of 
the definite founder of the philosophy of history. 
Henceforth, history will be no longer what it was to 
Bossuet, the unfolding of a particular plan conceived 
and realized by a power superior to man, which leads 
man, who can only bestir himself according to its 
designs ; it will no longer be what it was to Montes- 
quieu, an interlinked chain of facts and causes ; 
what it was to Vico, a lifeless and almost reasonlenr, 
movement. It w T ill be the history of a being, de- 
veloping himself by his inw T ard power, creating him- 
self and attaining by diverse degrees to the full 
possession of himself. There is, no doubt, a move- 
ment, as Yico meant, there are, no doubt causes, in 
Montesquieu's sense ; there is, no doubt, a previously 
imposed plan, agreeing with Bossuet's theory. But 



The Future of Science. 161 



what they failed to perceive was the active and living 
force impelling that movement, animating those 
causes, and which without any co-operation from 
without, and solely by its tendency towards the 
perfect, accomplishes the providential plan. Perfect 
autonomy, inward creation, in short, life ; such is the 
law of humanity. 

Assuredly Bossuet's plan is simple enough ; simple 
like a pyramid ; commandment on one side ; obedience 
on the other ; Grod and man, the King and the subject, 
the Church and the believer. It is simple but harsh, 
and after all it is doomed. We shall, henceforth, 
have great difficulty to imagine in what manner those 
who do not believe in progress conceive the w T orld. 
If there be a notion we have outgrown, it is that of 
nations succeeding one another, traversing the same 
periods in order to die in their turn, then to revive 
under other names, and thus without cessation re- 
commencing the same dream. In that case what a 
nightmare humanity would be ; what a tissue of 
absurdities the various revolutions ! What a colour- 
less, vapid thing life! Amidst such a poor system, 
would it be really worth while to aspire ardently to 
the beautiful and the true, to sacrifice one's happi- 
ness and peace of mind to them ? I can conceive 
such a paltry conception of actual existence in the 
severely orthodox, who transports the whole of his 
present existence to the one beyond ; I fail to con- 
ceive it in the philosopher. The idea of humanity is 
the grand line of demarcation between the ancient 
and the new philosophies. Consider well why the 
ancient systems no longer satisfy you ; you will find 
that it is because that idea is utterly absent from it. 
In that, I repeat, lies the whole of the new philo- 
sophy (79). 

The moment we admit that humanity is conceived 
as a conscience that shapes and developes itself, we 
admit the necessity of a psychologij of humanity, 
just as there is a psychology of the individual. 
The irregular and fortuitous appearance of its progress 

M 



162 The Future of Science. 

mast not hide from us the laws that govern it. 
Botany shows us that all the trees would be as 
regular as the conifera? with regard to their form, 
the arrangement of their leaves and branches, were it 
not for abortion and suppression which, destroying the 
symmetry, impart to them such fantastic shapes. 
A river would flow straight to the sea but for the 
hills which compel it to turn so frequently aside. 
In the same way humanity, apparently given up to 
chance, yields to laws which other laws may cause 
to deviate, but which are nevertheless the reason of 
its movement. History is the necessary form of the 
science of everything contained in the " will-be. 11 
The science of languages means the history of lan- 
guages ; the science of literatures and religions means 
the history of literatures and religions. The science 
of the human intellect means the history of the 
human intellect. To attempt to seize a given 
moment only of those successive existences in order 
to dissect and to fixedly examine it is simply falsi- 
fying their nature. For they are not complete at a 
given moment, they are merely tending towards 
completion. Such is the human intellect. By what 
right do you select the man of the nineteenth century 
to illustrate the theory of it ? I am aware that 
there are common elements which the examination 
of all countries and all peoples will yield to analysis. 
But these, on account of their very stability are not 
the most essential to science. The variable and 
characteristic element is much more important. The 
only reason why physiology often appears so much 
tautology and emptiness is because it confines itself 
too exclusively to those generalizations of small value 
which make it look like the lesson of philosophy of 
the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme." Philology commits 
the same mistake when instead of taking languages 
in their individual varieties, it confines itself to the 
general analysis of the forms common to all, to what 
we call general grammar. 

How unsuitable, in fact, is our dry and abstract 



The Future of Science. 163 

mode of treating psychology for the purpose of put- 
ting into relief the differential shades of the senti- 
ments of humanity. It would lead us to conclude 
that every race, every century understood God, the 
soul, morality in an identical manner (80). We 
never seem to suspect that each nation with its 
temples, its divinities, its poesy, its heroic traditions, 
its fantastic beliefs, its laws and its institutions re- 
presents a unity, a way of its own of taking life, a 
separate tone in humanity, a distinctive faculty of 
the great soul. The true psychology of humanity 
would consist in analyzing the one after the other 
those various lives in their complexity, and as 
every nation has generally tied its suprasensitive 
life into a spiritual sheaf, which is its literature, 
true psychology would consist above all in the history 
of literatures. The second volume of M. von Hum- 
boldt's Cosmos (the history of a sentiment traced in 
all its varieties and shades among every race and 
through the lapse of all the centuries) may be 
taken as an example of this historical psychology. 
Ordinary psychology is too much like that literature 
which by dint of representing humanity in its 
general characteristics and rejecting local and indi- 
vidual colour will perish through lack of vitality of its 
own and originality. 

I am under the impression that the comparative 
study of the different literatures has afforded me a 
much wider idea of human nature than that generally 
conceived. No doubt there is a good deal that is 
universal, there are a great many common elements 
in human nature. No doubt we may see that there 
is but one psychology the same that there is but one 
literature, seeing that all literatures live on the same 
common fund of sentiments and ideas. But this 
universality is not where we believe it to be, and 
to apply a rigid and unbending theory to mankind of 
different epochs is simply to falsify the complexion 
of facts. That which is universal, is the great 
divisions and the great needs of nature ; they are, if 



164 The Future of Science. 

I may so express it, the natural pigeon-holes, filled 
up successively by those diverse and variable forms ; 
religion, poesy, morality, etc. Looking at the 
past of humanity only, religion tor instance would 
seem to be essential to human nature ; and still 
religion in the ancient forms is fated to disappear. 
That which will remain is the place it occupied, the 
want to which it corresponded, and which will be 
satisfied one day by something analogous to it. Has 
morality itself been a form of all ages — provided we 
attach to the word the complete and quasi-evangelical 
sense we give to it ? A not over delicate analysis, 
taking no account of the different physiognomy of 
facts, might affirm such a thing. True psychology 
which takes care not to designate by the same name 
facts of a different complexion, though they may be 
analogous cannot make up its mind to this. Is the 
word morality applicable to the form which the idea 
assumed in the ancient Arab, Hebrew and Chinese 
civilizations, which it still assumes among savage 
peoples, etc. ? I am not making one of those common- 
place objections here, which have been so often 
repeated since the days of Montaigne and Bayle, 
and which attempted to prove by means of a few 
divergencies or a few ambiguous terms that in certain 
peoples the moral sense was entirely absent. I admit 
that the moral sense or its equivalents appertain to 
the essence of humanity, but I maintain that to apply 
the same denomination to facts so diverse is to speak 
incorrectly. There exists in humanity a faculty or 
a need, in one word a capacity which in our days 
is supplied by a code of morals, and which has always 
been supplied, which will always be supplied by some- 
thing analogous. In the same way I conceive that 
in the future the word morality will not be the 
proper word and that it will be replaced by another. 
As far as my personal use goes, I prefer to substitute 
the word aastheticism for it. Face to face with a 
iven action, I ask myself whether it is ugly or 
beautiful rather than whether it be good or bad, and 



I 



The Future of Science. 1(55 

I believe that mine is a good criterion ; because 
with the simple morality that constitutes the honest 
man, it is still possible to lead a sufficiently paltry 
existence. Be this as it may, the immutable should 
only be looked for in the divisions of human nature 
themselves, iu its compartments, if I may so express 
it, and not in the forms that are adjusted to it, and 
which may be replaced by substitutes. This is some- 
thing analogous to the fact of chemical substitution 
in which analogous bodies may in their turn fill up 
the same frames. 

China offers me the best example to elucidate what 
I have just said. It would be altogether incorrect to 
say that the Chinese are a nation without morality, 
without religion, without a mythology, without God; 
in that case they would be a monster among man- 
kind, and yet it is very certain that the Chinese have 
neither morality, religion, a mythology, nor a God in 
the sense we understand them. Theology and the 
supernatural occupy no place in the minds of these 
people ; and Confucius only acted in accordance with 
the spirit of his nation when he dissuaded his disciples 
from the study of things divine (81). So vague are 
the ideas of the Chinese with regard to the Godhead, 
that since the days of Francis Xavier the missionaries 
have had the greatest difficulty to find a Chinese 
term, signifying God. The Catholics, after a good 
deal of groping about, succeeded at last in agreeing 
upon a word ; but when, about thirty years ago, the 
Protestants began to translate the Bible into Chinese, 
there was a repetition of the difficulties. The variety 
of terms employed by the different Protestant mission- 
aries to designate God became such, that they had 
to have recourse to a council, which it appears to 
me, decided nothing at all, seeing that Mr. Medhurst 
who has recently published a dissertation on the 
subject which was printed at Shanghai still discusses 
the sense in which the classic authors employ each of 
the terms that have been proposed as equivalents for 
the word God. We might point out similar analogies 



iG6 The Future of Science. 

with regard to morality, and religion, and prove that 
morality with the Chinese is only the observance of 
an established ceremonial and religion the respect 
due to ancestors. M. Saint-Marc-Grirardin when he 
compared Voltaire's " Orphelin de la Chine" with 
the original has pertinently pointed how the pathetic 
and passionate elements disappear from the Chinese 
system to become systematic duty, how the family 
affections disappear by the family becoming an 
institution (82). A careful study of the different 
zones of the affections of the human species would 
reveal everywhere, not an identity of elements, but 
analogous composition, the same plan, the same dis- 
position of parts in diverse proportions. A given 
element, prominent in a given race, is only rudimen- 
tary in another. " Mythoiogism " so dominant in 
India scarcely shows in China, but is nevertheless 
perceptible on an infinitely reduced scale. Philosophy, 
the dominant element in the Indo- Germanic races 
appears to be altogether foreign to the Semites, and 
still, on looking very closely, one perceives in the 
latter, not the thing itself, but its rudimentary germ. 
At the outset of our scientific career we are apt 
to imagine the laws of the psychological and physio- 
logical world as absolutely non-deviating formulas, 
but before long the scientific spirit modifies this 
conception. We meet with individualism every- 
where ; the genus and the species almost melt into 
one in the analysis of the naturalist ; each fact shows 
itself as sui generis; the most simple phenomenon 
appear incapable of being reduced ; the order of real 
things is only a vast oscillation of tendencies pro- 
ducing by then infinitely varied combinations con- 
stantly varying apparitions. Reason is the only 
one law that governs the world ; it is as impossible 
to reduce to formulas the law of things as to 
reduce to a settled number of schemes the turns of 
speech of the orator, as to enumerate the precepts 
on which the moral man bases his conduct towards 
the good. "Endeavour to be beautiful (83), and 



The Future of Science. 167 

then do at every moment that with which your heart 
will inspire you ; " that is morality in a nutshell. 
All the other rules in their absolute form are faulty 
and mendacious. The general rules are only trumpery 
makeshifts to hide the absence of the grand moral 
sense, which in itself is sufficient to show man at all 
times what is most beautiful. It is an attempt to 
substitute previously prepared instructions for inmost 
spontaneousness. The variety of cases constantly 
baffles all previsions. There is nothing, absolutely 
nothing that can replace the soul ; no amount of 
teaching can make up with man for the inspiration 
of his nature. 

Psychology, as understood up till now, is to true 
historical psychology what the comparative philology 
of Bopp and W. von Humboldt is to that " skimpy " 
part of dialectics, formerly entitled comparative 
grammar. In the latter one treated language like 
a petrified thing, settled once for all, stereotyped 
in its forms, as something finished, and which 
was supposed to have been always, and to remain 
always as it was. In the former, on the other 
hand, they take the living organism, the specific 
variety, the movement, the process of evolution, in 
short, the history. Its history is the true form of the 
science of languages (84). It is no doubt useful to 
take an idiom at a given moment of its existence, if 
it be an idiom one is learning to speak. But to stop 
there is as little profitable to science as if we limitc d 
the study of organized bodies to the examination of 
what they are at a definite moment without inquiring 
into the laws of their development. No doubt if 
languages were like inanimate bodies condemned to 
immobility, grammar should be purely theoretical. 
But they are alive, like man and mankind who speak 
them, they are constantly being decomposed and 
reconstructed ; it is a real inward growth, a constant 
circulation from within to without, and from without 
to within, a continual " becoming." As such they 
are like everything that lives subject to the laws of 



168 The Future of Science. 

changing and successive existence, to their progress 
and phases, in consequence of that secret impulsion, 
which allows neither man nor the productions of his 
mind to remain stationary. 

In the same way psychology has insisted too much 
on considering man from the point of view of his 
"being" and has not inquired sufficiently into his 
evolution. Everything that lives has a history; the 
psychological man as well as the human body, aggre- 
gate humanity as well as the individual lives and 
renews its life. They constitute a moving picture 
in which the masses of colour, blending with one 
another by imperceptible gradations should by a 
constant play tone down and absorb one another, 
expand and at the same time limit one another. It 
is a reciprocal action and reaction, a commerce of 
common parts, a growth on a common trunk. In 
this eternal evolution one would in vain look for the 
stable element to which to apply the anatomical 
process. The word soul, so admirably fit to designate 
the supra-sensitive life of man will always be fallacious 
and untrue if applied in the sense of a permanent 
basis which would be the ever identical subject of 
phenomena. It is this false connection of a fixed 
substratum which has given to psychology its hard 
and fast forms. The soul is taken for a fixed, per- 
manent being, and analyzed like a natural body, 
wmile after all it is only the ever variable resultant 
of the multiple and complex facts of existence. The 
soul means individual evolution, just as God means 
universal evolution. It is certain that if there 
were an invariable "being" which we might call 
the soul, just as there are creations we call Iceland 
spar, quartz, mica, there would be a science called 
'psychology, which would be analogous to mineralogy. 
So true is this that in taking up this standpoint 
we should cease studying the science of the soul, 
for there are various kinds, and take to studying 
the science of souls. This is how Aristotle under- 
stood it, who w T as far less guilty than people generally 



The Future of Science. 169 

think him, for to him the soul is only the persistent 
phenomenon of life. This above all, is the manner 
in which it was understood by ancient philosophy 
which made itself grotesque to the extent of found- 
ing a science called pneumatology or the science of 
spiritual beings ('' God, man, the angel, and may- 
be animals," they said) just as, in natural history, we 
might found a science treating of the horse, the 
unicorn, the whale and the butterfly. The Scotch 
psychology avoided those scholastic absurdities, but 
still, it clung too much to the point of view of the 
" being " and not enough to the point of view of 
the evolution, it still conceived philosophy as the 
study of man in an abstract and absolute manner, 
and not as the study of the eternal "becoming." 
The science of man will only then be placed in 
IBs true light when students are persuaded that 
conscience evolves itself, vague, feeble, non-cen- 
tralized at first, in the individual as well as in aggre- 
gate humanity, that it only attains its plenitude 
after having gone through diverse phases J It will 
then be seen that the science of the individual soul 
is the history of the individual soul, and the science 
of the human intellect, the history of the human 
intellect. 

The great progress of modern thought has been 
the substitution of the category of evolution for the 
category of the "being"; I of the conception of the 
relative for the conception^ of the absolute, of move- 
ment for immobility. Formerly everything was con- 
sidered as " being " (an accomplished fact) ; people 
spoke of law, of religion, of politics, of poetry in an 
absolute fashion (85). At present everything is 
considered as in the process of formation (86). Not 
that formerly evolution and development were not, 
as they are to-day, general laws ; but people had no 
perception of them. The earth revolved before 
Copernicus, albeit that it was thought to be stationary. 
Substantial hypotheses always precede phenomenal 
hypotheses, The Egyptian statue, motionless with 



170 The Future of Science. 

its hands "stuck" to its knees is the natural ante- 
cedent of the Greek that lives and moves. 

But how is it possible to establish the history of 
the human intellect without the most extensive 
learning and without the study of the monuments 
bequeathed to us by every epoch ? From that point 
of view nothing is useless, the most insignificant 
works are often the most important in so far as they 
energetically depict one aspect of things. The 
Talmud is a very curious monument of moral de- 
pression and extravagance ; but I maintain that no 
one who has not studied that unique work can form 
an idea of how far the human intellect may go in its 
aberration from the paths of common sense. The 
works of the Latin poets of the decline are insipid 
enough in all conscience, nevertheless, unless one 
reads them, it is impossible to conceive the charac- 
teristics of a decadence, to get an idea of the exact 
colour of an epoch in which the intellectual sap is 
exhausted. Of all literatures, the Syriac is, I imagine, 
the most colourless. The writings of that nation are 
pervaded by a suave mediocrity for which I can find 
no name. Herein lies its very interest, no study 
affords a better idea of the mediocre condition, of the 
human intellect. And, natural, unsophisticated 
mediocrity being a facet of human life just like any 
other, it has a claim to our attention. No doubt, 
such studies possess very little value from the 
aesthetic point of view, they are very precious from 
the scientific one. There is certainly very little to 
be learned from, and to admire in, the Latin poems of 
the Middle Ages and the scientific literature in 
general of those days ; still, can we pretend to know 
the human mind if ignorant of the dreams that 
haunted their sleep of ten centuries' duration. 

Among the special works in connection with the 
Semitic languages I know of none more urgent in 
the state of actual science than a complete and 
definitely authentic publication of the books of the 
small gnostic sect which subsists still at Bassora 



The Future of Science. 171 



under the name of Mendaites or Christians of St. 
John. Those books do not contain a single line of 
sense ; they are simply so much raving composed in 
a barbarous and indecipherable style. It is that 
which constitutes their very value. For it is easier 
to study diverse natures in their crises than in their 
normal condition. The regularity of life only shows 
one surface and conceals in its depth the inmost 
mainsprings ; in a state of ebullition, on the other 
hand, everything rises in its turn to the surface. 
Sleep, madness, delirium, somnambulism, hallucina- 
tion afford the study of individual psychology a much 
more profitable field of observation than the regular 
condition. For the phenomena which in the latter 
state are effaced, as it were, by their insignificance 
show themselves in extraordinary crises in a more 
conspicuous manner by reason of their exaggeration. 
The physicist does not study galvanism in the feeble 
quantity presented by nature, but multiplies it by 
experiment in order to study it with more facility, 
being perfectly sure, after all, that the laws thus ob- 
served in their exaggerated condition are identical 
with those of the natural condition. In the same way 
the psychology of humanity should take its lessons 
above all from the study of the aberrations of mankind, 
of its dreams, of its hallucinations, of all those strange 
absurdities that may be met with at every page of 
the history of the human intellect. 

The philosophical spirit can extract philosophy 
from no matter what. If I were condemned to make 
a special study of heraldry, it seems to me that I 
should cheerfully make up my mind to it and gather 
a honey that would have its sweetness like the 
veriest bee among a well stocked flowerbed. If I 
were incarcerated at Vincennes with the Anecdota of 
Fez or Martene and the Collection of d'Achery, 
1 should consider myself the happiest of mortals. I 
commenced, and I hope to have the courage to 
finish a work on the history of Hellenism among the 
Eastern peoples (Assyrians, Arabs, Persians, Arme- 



172 The Future of Science 

nians, Georgians, etc.). I can pledge my word that 
there is no more wearisome business, no more 
monotonous spectacle, no more colourless and less 
original page in literary history. Nevertheless, I 
hope to extract from this insignificant study some 
curious traits for the history of the human intellect ; 
we shall meet in it with two profoundly different 
spirits, in presence of, and incapable of penetrating, 
one another, a superficial education without lasting 
effects which, by ifcs contrast, will make us under- 
stand the immense fact of the Hellenic education of 
the Western peoples ; singular misunderstandings, 
strange instances of utter nonsense will disclose 
voids, the knowledge of which will be useful in 
drawing up in a more exact way the map of the 
Semitic spirit and the Indo- Germanic spirit. 

The history of the Origins of Christianity written 
by a critic who would go to the direct sources would 
undoubtedly be a work of importance. Well, that 
marvellous history, which if carried out in a scientific 
and final manner would revolutionize thought, with 
what should it be constructed ? With utterly in- 
significant books, such as the book of Enoch, the 
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament 
of Solomon, and in general the Apocryphal books of 
Jewish and Christian origin, the Chaldaic paraphrases, 
the Mishna, the Deutero- Canonical books, etc. On 
that day, Eabricius and Thilo w T ho have prepared 
a creditable edition of these texts, Bruce who brought 
back from Abyssinia, the book of Enoch, Laurence, 
Murray and A. G. Hoffmann who have elaborated 
the text, wall have done more for the work than 
Voltaire with the whole of the eighteenth century 
by his side. 

Thus, from the vast point of view of the science of 
the human intellect works deemed insignificant at 
the first glance may prove to be the most important. 
A given literature in Asia which has absolutely no 
intrinsic value may afford data for the history of the 
human intellect more curious than no matter which 



Tlie Future of Science. 173 

modern literature. The scientific study of the savage 
races would be attended with still more decisive 
results, if it were undertaken by truly philosophical 
minds. Just as the worst popular jargon is more apt 
to initiate us in the science of languages than an 
artificial language polished by the hand of man 
like French, so may a man be thoroughly versed in 
various literatures such as the French, the German, 
the English, the Italian, without having as much as 
perceived the great problem. Orientalists often 
make themselves ridiculous by attributing an absolute 
value to the literatures they cultivate. It would be 
too painful to have devoted the whole of one's life to 
deciphering a difficult text and then to have to admit 
that the text was not admirable. On the other 
hand, superficial minds smile and joke when they 
see serious people amuse themselves in translating 
and commenting books, possessing no form or style, 
which in our opinions would be only absurd and 
ridiculous. They are both in the wrong. We ought 
not to say; "This is absurd; this is magnificent." 
•We should say; "This belongs to the human 
intellect, consequently it has its value." It is very 
patent at once that from the point of view of positive 
science there is nothing to be gained by the study 
of the East. A few hours given to the perusal of a 
modern work on medicine, mathematics or astronomy 
will be more useful as regards the knowledge of those 
sciences than long years of learned research devoted 
to the physicians, mathematicians and astronomers 
of the East (87;. Eveu history is scarcely a 
sufficient motive to invest those studies with any 
value. For, first of all, the ancient history of the 
East is absolutely fabulous ; secondly, the moment 
it becomes more or less trustworthy, the political 
history of the East becomes almost insignificant. 
The platitude of the Arabian and Persian historians 
who have transmitted to us the history of Islamism 
is absolutely without a parallel. And, in fairness be 
it said, the history itself is much more to blame than 



J 



174 The Future of Science, 

the historians. What could the latter make out 
of a world of ice, as it were, consisting of whims and 
freaks of absurd and bloodthirsty despots, revolts of 
governors, chaDges of dynasties, successions of viziers, 
a world from which humanity is apparently com- 
pletely absent, in which the voice of nature seems 
dumb, in which there is not a single true or original 
movement of the people ? Certainly, those who are 
under the impression that a man studies Turkish 
literature with the same object that he would study 
German literature ; to find something to admire, are 
right when they smile at those who devote their 
vigils to it, in looking at them as benighted intellects, 
incapable of doing aught else. As a rule, the 
modern literatures of the East are weak, and would 
not in themselves, deserve the attention of the 
serious student (88). But they become exceedingly 
valuable when bearing in mind that they afford 
important elements for the study of ancient litera- 
ture and the comparative study of idioms. Nothing 
is useless when we know how to reduce it to its aim, 
but we must not lose sight of the fact that mediocrity 
has only its value in the whole of which it is a part. 

But has the study of the ancient literatures of the 
East a value of its own, and irrespective of the history 
of the human intellect ? I confess that there is real 
and incontestable beauty in those ancient productions 
of the East. Job and Isaiah, the Ramayana and the 
Mahabarata, the pre-Islamite poems are beautiful for 
the same reason that Homer is beautiful. But, if we 
analyze the feeling produced in us by those ancient 
works, what, as far as we are concerned, is their claim 
to the award of beauty ? We admire a poem of M. de 
Lamartine, a tragedy of Schiller, a canto of Goethe, 
because we meet with our ideal in it. Do we equally 
meet with our ideal in the poetical dissertations of 
Job, in the sweet psalms of the Jews, in the picture 
of Arabian life of Antara, in the hymns of the Vedas, 
in the admirable episodes of Nal and Damayanti, of 
Yadnadatta, of Savitri, of the descent of the Ganga ? 



The Future of Science. 175 



Is it our ideal we meet with in the symholical figure 
of Um or of Brahina, in an Egyptian pyramid, or in 
the Caverns of Bllora? Certainly not. We can only 
admire on the condition of transporting ourselves to 
the times to which these monuments belong, of 
placing ourselves in the centre of human intellectuality, 
of regarding all this as the eternal growth of hidden 
forces. That is why limited and more or less rigid 
intellects who judge these ancient productions by 
clinging obstinately to the modern point of view 
cannot make up their minds to admire them, or else 
admire exactly that which is not worthy of admira- 
tion, or what is altogether absent from it (89). Just 
submit the myths of the Maruthas or the visions of 
Ezekiel to a man who is not versed in strange litera- 
tures, he will simply vote them hideous and repulsive. 
From his point of view, Voltaire was right in 
ridiculing Ezekiel (90), just as Perrault and some 
critics of the school of Alexandria were right in de- 
claring Homer ridiculous, and Madame Dacier and 
Boileau are wrong when they undertake to defend 
Homer while still adhering to the same strange 
manner of viewing antiquity. To understand the 
true sense of those exotic beauties, we must have 
become identified with the intellect of aggregate 
humanity ; we must feel, live, with it in order to 
grasp its originality, its life, its harmony even in its 
most eccentric creations wherever we meet with 
them. Champollion wound up by perceiving beauty 
in the Egyptian heads ; the Jews consider the 
Talmud replete with a morality as lofty as that of the 
Gospel ; the lovers of the Middle Ages stand lost 
in admiration before grotesque statues which the 
profane do not deem worthy of a look. Think you 
that this is the mere illusion of the erudite man or 
the ardent amateur? No ; it simply arises from the 
fact that in every fold and corner of the handiwork of 
man there is hidden a ray of divine light, the careful 
observer knows where to find it. The altar on which 
the patriarchs sacrificed to Jehovah was, materially 



176 The Future of Science. 



speaking, only a heap of stones ; considered in its 
humanitarian significance, as a symbol of the sim- 
plicity of those ancient modes of worship and of the 
natural and amorphous God of primeval humanity, 
that heap of stones was worth a temple of anthro- 
pomorphic Greece, and was certainly a thousand- 
fold more beautiful than our temples of gold and 
marble raised and admired by people who do not 
believe in God. A. little cowdung and a handful 
of Kousa herbs are enough for the Brahmin's sacrifice 
and for his reaching God in his own way. The 
rough-hewn cippus by which the Hellenes represented 
the Graces was more eloquent to them than beau- 
tiful allegorical statues. The value of things lies in 
what humanity can see in them, in the feelings it 
has attached to them, in the symbols it drew from 
them. So true is this that the imitations of primeval 
works, however perfect they are supposed to be, are 
not beautiful, while the works themselves are sublime. 
An exact reproduction of the pyramid of Ghizeh od 
the common of Saint-Denis would be mere child- 
ishness. In the latter days of Hebraic literature, the 
learned men composed psalms imitated from the 
ancient Canticles, so perfect as to puzzle every one. 
Well ; we can only say that the old psalms are 
beautiful, while the modern ones are merely in- 
genious ; and still the greatest adept can scarcely 
distinguish them from one another. 

The beauty of a work should never be considered 
from an abstract point and independently of the 
surroundings that gave it birth. If the Ossianic 
poems of Macpherson were authentic they should 
be ranked with those of Homer The moment it 
is proved that they are the work of a poet of the 
eighteenth century, they have only a mediocre value. 
For it is the true breath of humanity and not the 
literary merit that constitutes the beautiful. Let 
us suppose that a man of parts (it is almost the 
case with Apollonius of Ehodes) succeeded in catch- 
ing a very fair imitation of the Homeric style in such 



Hie Future of Science. 177 

a way as to produce a poem in exactly the same 
style, a poem that should be to Homer's what " Les 
Paroles d'un Croyant " are to the Bible, that poem in 
many people's opinion, ought to be superior to 
Homer's ; for the author would be able to avoid what 
we consider blemishes, or at any rate, the wants of 
transition, the contradictions. I should like to know 
how the absolute critics would manage to prove that 
such a poem is not in fact superior to the " Iliad," or 
rather to prove effectually that the " Iliad " is worth 
a world's ransom while the work of the modern man 
is doomed to mildew and oblivion on the shelves of a 
library after having for an instant diverted the quid- 
nuncs. In what then does the beauty of Homer 
consist, seeing that a poem absolutely like his, written 
in the nineteenth century would not be beautiful ? 
It is because the Homeric poem of the nineteenth 
century would not be true. It is not Homer who is 
beautiful, it is the Homeric life, the phase of man- 
kind's existence as described in Homer. It is not 
the Bible that is beautiful, it is the Biblical manners 
and customs, the form of existence depicted in the 
Bible. It is not this or that Indian poem that is 
beautiful, it is the Indian life. What do we admire 
in " Telemaque " ? Is it the perfect imitation of the 
antique form ? Is it this or that description, this or 
that comparison borrowed from Homer or Yirgil? 
No, they simply elicit the cool remark, as if we were 
stating a mere fact, " This man has caught the 
antique style in a remarkably delicate way." That 
which arouses our admiration and our sympathy in 
that beautiful book is exactly the modern spirit 
breathing through it, the genius of Christianity which 
prompted Fenelon in his description of the Elysian 
Fields ; it is that policy so moral and so rational 
guessed at by a miracle as it were amidst the Satur- 
nalia of an absolute monarchy. 

The true literature of an age is that which expresses 
and depicts that age (91). Some sacred orators of 
the Restoration have bequeathed us funeral orations 



1 78 The Future of Science. 

imitated from those of Bossuet and almost entirely 
composed of the phrases of that great man. Well ; 
these phrases which are beautiful in the work of the 
seventeenth century, because of their sincerity at 
that time, are insignificant later on because they are 
false and because they do not express the sentiments 
of the nineteenth century. Independently of any 
system, except that which dogmatically preaches 
utter annihilation, the tomb has its poesy, and this 
poesy is never more affecting perhaps than when an 
involuntary doubt mingles with the certainty latent in 
every heart, as if to moderate the too great prosaism 
of dogmatic affirmation. The chiaro-oscuro affords 
a softer and sadder tint, a less distinctly drawn 
horizon, more vague than and more analogous to the 
tomb. The few pages of M. Cousin on Santa-Eosa 
are more valuable, as far as our feelings go than 
a funeral oration imitated from those of Bossuet. A 
beautiful copy of a picture by Eaphael is beautiful 
because it pretends nothing more than to represent 
Baphael. But a nineteenth century imitation of 
Bossuet is not beautiful, because it is a false applica- 
tion of forms that were true once upon a time ; it 
does not express the humanity of its epoch. 

It has been pointed out in a delicate manner how 
much' the works of art with which our museums are 
crowded lose in their aesthetic value. There can be 
no doubt as to that, seeing that their position and 
their significance at the epoch when they were true 
contributed three-fourths of their beauty. A work 
has no value save in its framework and the frame- 
work of every work is its epoch. Did not the sculp- 
ture of the Parthenon possess a greater value in the 
place to which it belongs than stuck in little bits 
on the walls of a museum ? I deeply admire the old 
religious monuments of the Middle-Ages, but face 
to face with our modern Gothic churches, built by an 
architect in a frock coat, piecing together the 
designs borrowed from the ancient fanes my feeling 
is only one of pain. Absolute admiration is always 



The Future of Science. 179 

artificial ; I yield to no man in my admiration of 
the " Pensees " of Pascal, the Sermons of Bossuet; 
but I admire them as works of the seventeenth 
century. If those works were to appear in our clays, 
they would scarcely deserve attention. True admi- 
ration is historial. Local colour possesses an incon- 
testable charm when real ; it is insipid when copied. 
I like the Alhambra and Broceliande in their reality ; 
I cannot help laughing at the romanticist who 
imagines that by combining these words, he can 
construct a beautiful work. Therein lies the error 
of Chateaubriand and the cause of the incredible 
mediocrity of his school. He is no longer himself 
when he leaves the domain of critical appreciation 
and tries to produce after the model of the works, 
the beauties of which he so judiciously points out. 

Among the works of Voltaire those in which he 
has copied- the forms of the past are unmistakably 
forgotten. Who, outside the college, reads the 
"Henriade" or his tragedies. But those in which 
he has shown the elegant proofs of his subtle tact, of 
his immorality, of his witty scepticism will live, for 
they are true. I prefer " La Fete de Bellebat " or 
" La Pucelle " to " La Mort de Cesar " or the poem 
on Fontenoy. It may be as infamous as you please ; 
but it belongs essentially to the century, it is the 
man himself. Horace is more lyrical in Nunc est 
bibendum than in Qualem ministrum ful minis alitem. 

Hence, true admiration of primitive works is only 
possible from the sole point of view of human in- 
tellect and by diving into its history not out of 
mere curiosity, but from a deep-rooted feeling and 
intimate sympathy. Every dogmatical point of view 
is absolute, all appreciation based on modern lines is 
out of place. The literature of the seventeenth 
century is no doubt admirable, but on the condition 
of it being transported to its own medium, the seven- 
teenth century. It is only the pedant of the college 
who is capable of seeing in it the eternal type of 
beauty. In this as in everything else criticism i3 



L80 The Future of Science. 

the condition of the greater aesthetics. The true 
meaning of things can only be grasped by him who 
takes up his position at the fountain head, itself 
of beauty ; and who from the centre of human nature 
contemplates with rapturous ecstasy and in every 
direction those eternal productions in their infinite 
variety ; temples, statues, poems, philosophical 
systems, religions, social forms, passions, virtues, 
sufferings, love, and nature itself which would have 
no value without the conscient being who idealizes it. 
Science, art, philosophy would no longer have 
any value outside the point of view of the human 
race. He only is capable of grasping the great 
beauty of things who sees in everything a form 
of the intellect, a step towards God. For we are 
bound to say humanity in this instance is but a 
symbol; perfect beauty .dwells in God alone, that 
is to say, in the whole. The most sublime works are 
those which humanity has made collectively and 
to which no name can be attached.' The most 
beautiful things are anonymous. The critics who 
are simply scholars and nothing else regret this 
and bring all the resources of their art to bear 
upon the penetration of that secret. All this is so 
much blundering. Do they imagine that they have 
enhanced the beauty of this or that national epic 
because they discovered ^the name of the weak 
mortal who indited it. [What do I care for that 
man who stands between humanity and me ? What 
do I care for the insignificant syllables of his name ? 
That name itself is a lie ; it is not he, it is the 
nation ; it is humanity toiling at a point of time and 
space who is the real author;] Anonymousness in 
this instance is much more expressive and true ; the 
only name which should designate the author of 
those spontaneous works is the name of the nation 
among which they saw the light ; and that name 
instead of being inscribed on the title, is inscribed on 
every page. If Homer were a real and single 
personage it would still be absurd to say that he 



Hie Future of Science. 181 

is the author of the " Iliad." A like composition, 
evolved in one piece from an individual brain, with- 
out traditional antecedent, would have been insipid 
and impossible to read, we might as well suppose 
that it is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who 
invented Christ. "Only rhetoric," said M. Cousin, 
" can ever suppose the plan of a grand work to 
belong to him who carries it out." The rhetoricians 
who look at everything from the literary side, who 
admire the poem, while they remain profoundly 
indifferent to the thing that has been perpetuated in 
song will never understand the part of the people 
in those works. It is the people that provides the 
material, and that material the rhetoricians are 
blind to and simply imagine that it is the inven- 
tion of the poet. The devolution and the Empire 
have produced no poem worthy of being mentioned ; 
they did better. They left us the most marvellous 
epic in action. It is foolish in the extreme to 
admire the literary expression of the feelings and 
the acts of mankind and not to admire those senti- 
ments and acts in mankind. Humanity alone is 
admirable. Genius is only the editor of the in- 
spirations of the crowd. Their glory lies in being 
so deeply sympathetic with the ever creative soul, 
as to feel the throbbings of that great heart resound 
beneath their pen. To endeavour to exalt them 
by revealing their individuality is merely to lower 
them ; it is to destroy their true glory in order 
to ennoble them by chimeras. True nobility does 
not consist in having a name of one's own, a glory 
of one's own, but in belonging to the noble race of 
the children of God, in being a soldier lost in the 
immense army marching onward towards the con- 
quest of the perfect. 

If transported to those open fields of humanity 
with what pity will the critic look upon that paltry 
admiration that clings to the handwriting of the 
writer rather than to the genius of him who has 
dictated. No doubt good criticism should allot a 



182 The Future of Science. 

great share to great men. They are valuab'e among 
humanity and through humanity. They distinctly 
and eminently feel what the world feels only vaguely. 
They impart a language and a voice to those mute 
instincts, which, pent up in the crowd — a stammer- 
ing being if ever there was one — aspire to find 
their expression and recognized themselves in their 
accents. " Oh, sublime poet," they say to him, " we 
were mute and thou hast given us a voice. We 
were seeking in the dark for ourselves and thou 
hast revealed us to ourselves." It is an admirable 
dialogue between the man of genius and the crowd. 
The crowd lends him the grand material, the man of 
genius gives expression to it, gives it shape and 
creates it ; then the crowd that feels but cannot 
speak, recognizes itself and shouts for joy. It sounds 
like one of those musical choruses, arranged in 
dialogue where now one, then several alternate with 
and reply to one another. Now it is the solitary 
voice, thin and prolonged which resounds in sweet 
but penetrating notes. Then comes the grand out- 
burst, apparently discordant, but powerful in effect, 
amidst which the small still voice continues, but 
henceforth absorbed in the grand concert which at 
last gets bej^ond, and carries it along. Great men 
have the faculty of guessing beforehand that which 
becomes ere long patent to all ; they are the scouts of 
the great army ; they in their rapid and venturesome 
advance, can catch sight before the others of the 
smiling plains and lofty peaks. But in reality it is 
the army that has brought them where they are and 
has pushed them forward ; it is the army that sup- 
ports them and gives them confidence ; it is the army 
which in them advances beyond its own lines, and 
the conquest is not realized until the main bod} r 
in its slower but surer march ruts with its millions 
of footsteps the path which they scarcely touched and 
encamps its heavy masses on the ground where they 
first appeared as bold adventurers. 

How often, in fact, have great men been literally 



The Future of Science. 183 



made by humanity, which removing from their exist- 
ence every stain and every trace of vulgarity, idealizes 
and consecrates them like statues erected on the 
various stages of its march, in order to remind itself 
of what it is, and to become enthusiastic over its own 
image. Happy those whom legend thus sequestrates 
from criticism. For alas, we may well believe that 
if we touched them we should find at their feet a 
greater or smaller clod of earth. That which is ad- 
mirable, heavenly, divine belongs nearly always by 
right to humanity. As a rule, good criticism must 
be on its guard against individuals and not allot to 
them too great a share. It is the masses that 
create, because the masses eminently possess, and to 
a thousandfold superior degree of spontaneity, the 
moral instincts of human nature. The beauty of 
Beatrice belongs to Dante, and not to Beatrice ; the 
"beauty of Krishna belongs to the genius of India, and 
not to Krishna ; the beauty of Jesus and Mary 
belongs to Christianity and not to Jesus and Mary. 
No doubt it is not merely pure chance which has 
marked out this or that individual for idealization. 
But there are cases in which the woof of humanity 
completely covers the primitive reality. By this 
powerful labour and transformed by this plastic 
energy the most ugly caterpillar might become the 
most ideal of butterflies. 

This labour of the crowd is an element which has 
been too much neglected in the history of philosophy. 
The debates are supposed to be finally closed when 
a few proper names have been opposed to one another. 
But no one concerns himself as to how the people 
looked at life, or with the intellectual system on 
which the age reposed ; this, however, is the great 
motor principle. The history of the human in- 
tellect is, a rule composed in too individual a 
matter. It is like the scene of* a play supposed to 
occur in a public thoroughfare in which there are at 
most two or three persons moving about. This or 
that history of German philosophy deems itself com- 



184 The Future of Science. 

plete in devoting separate articles to Kant, Fichte, 
Schelling, Hegel, Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Herbart. 
But where is the grand humanity amidst which they 
lived? That ought to be the permanent background 
on which the individuals should be shown. In one 
word, the history of philosophy should be the history 
of the thoughts of mankind. The current ideas of a 
people and of an age contain an unwritten philosophy 
and literature which should be inserted in the great 
total. It is thought that a people has no literature 
until it has definite and settled monuments. But 
the true literary productions of a people in its in- 
tellectual childhood are the mythical ideas that are 
not written down (the conception of a regular 
system of editing and the faculties implied by such 
work only appear among a people at a comparatively 
advanced degree of thought), ideas rolling their 
current throughout the whole of the nation, filter- 
ing tradition through a thousand secret rivulets to 
which every one gives a form according to his own 
taste. At the first glance, one would be tempted to 
believe that the Breton peoples have no literature, 
because there would be a difficulty in giving an 
extensive catalogue of Breton books really and truly 
ancient and original. But the fact is that they have 
a complete traditional literature in their legends, 
their stories, their mythological fantasies, their 
superstitious worships, their poems hovering about 
here and there. It was the same with the greater 
part of our heroic legends before they were repudiated 
by the cultured part of the nation and got into low 
company in the " Bibliotheque Bleue." 

On entering the Spanish galleries at the Louvre 
we derive no doubt a great deal of pleasure from the 
close examination of this or that picture of Murillo 
or-Bibeira. But there is something still more beauti- 
ful and that is the impression we derive from the 
galleries as a whole, from the ordinary pose of the 
personages, from the general style of the pictures, 
from the dominant colouring. Not a nude figure, 



Tlie Future of Science. 185 

not a smile on a single pair of lips. It is Spain in 
her' habit as she lived that we see before us. The 
principle of grand criticism should in like manner con- 
sist in grasping the physiognomy of each portion of 
humanity. To praise this, to blame that is to fall into 
a paltry method indeed. We must take the work for 
what it is, perfect in its order, eminently representing 
what it does represent, and not reproach it for what it 
has not. The idea that the author has made a mistake 
is altogether out of place in literary criticism, unless 
we are treating of literatures altogether artificial, like 
the Latin literature of the decadence. No doubt, 
not everything is of equal value, but as a rule a piece 
is what it is capable of being. We must place it on 
a higher or lower rung in the scale of the ideal, but 
we should not blame the author for having conceived 
the thing in this or that tone, and for having 
voluntarily shunned this or that order of beauty. 
We may criticize the point of view from which each 
work is conceived rather than the work itself, for 
all its great authors are perfect from their point of 
view, and the criticisms addressed to them are as 
a rule merely so many reproaches for not having 
been what they were not. 

I have perhaps repeated too often, still I will 
repeat once more that there is a science of humanity 
which, I hope, will have as much right to assume 
the title of philosophy as the science treating of the 
individual ; a science which is impossible of attain- 
ment save by the erudite trituration of the works of 
humanity. ^ We need not look for any other motive 
in many studies whose object is the past. Why 
should the most noble intellect devote itself to the 
translation of the Bhagavata-Purana, to commenting 
the Yashua ? He who has accomplished this task 
in so learned a manner will answer you ; " To analyze 
the works of human thought, by assigning to each 
its essential character, to discover the analogies 
which connect them with one another, and to look 
for the reason of those analogies in the nature of 



186 The Future of Science. 

intelligence itself, which without losing aught of 
its indivisible unity, gets multiplied by the very 
varied products of art and science ; to the solution 
of this problem the genius of the philosophers of 
all times has clung from the moment that Greece 
bestowed upon mankind the two powerful levers of 
analysis and observation (92)." Therein lies the only 
value of erudition. No one dreams of crediting it 
with any practical utility, apart from the fact that 
curiosity pure and simple would not suffice to ennoble 
it. Hence, all that remains is to look upon it as the 
condition of the science of the human intellect ; the 
science of the products of the human intellect. 

Both the ordinary observer and the savant admire 
a beautiful flower to the same degree, but they do 
not admire the same things in it. The ordinary 
observer only sees bright colours and shapely form. 
The savant is so delighted, is so enraptured with 
the marvels and secrets of its inner life as scarcely to 
notice those superficial beauties. It is not exactly 
the flower he admires, it is life, universal force which 
in one of its forms manifests itself in it. Criticism 
has up till now admired the masterpieces of literature 
as we admire the beautiful forms of the human body. 
The critic of the future will admire them like the 
anatomist, who penetrating beyond those perceptible 
beauties, finds in the secrets of their organization an 
order of beautiful things a thousand times superior. 
A dissected body is in a certain sense horrible to a 
degree, and yet the eye of science discovers in it a 
world of marvels. 

Looked at in this way, the most eccentric litera- 
tures, those which, judged according to our ideas, 
would possess the least value, those that take us the 
farthest away from the actual world are the most 
important. Comparative anatomy obtains many 
more results from the observation of inferior animals 
than from the observation of the superior species. 
Cuvier might have gone on dissecting domestic 
animals all his life without so much as suspect 



The Future of Science. 1S7 

the higher problems revealed to him by the study 
of the molluscs and annelids. In the same way 
those who study only regular literatures which, in 
the order of products of the intellect, are as the 
big classical animals in the animal scale will never 
succeed in arriving at a larger conception of the 
science of the human intellect (93). They only see 
the literary and aesthetic side ; nay more ; th.Qj 
cannot even understand that in a grand and thorough 
manner. For they fail to see the divine force at 
work in every creation of the human intellect. For 
instance, what are literary works in France ? Ele- 
gant and subtle bits of moral gossip, never majestic 
and scientific works. No problem is ever pro- 
pounded ; there is no perception of the higher cause. 
The science of literatures is treated of as botany 
would be treated of by an amateur florist who would 
be content to finger and admire the petals of each 
flower. The higher and grander criticism, on the 
contrary, does not scruple to tear away the flower in 
order to study its roots, to count its stamens, to 
analyze its tissues. But we should not infer from 
this that it relinquishes its higher admiration. On 
the contrary, the higher and grander criticism alone 
has the right to admire, inasmuch as it alone is certain 
not to admire blunders, mistakes of copyists ; the 
higher criticism alone knows the reality, and the 
reality only is admirable. That will be our system, 
we who belong to the second half of the nineteenth 
century. We may not possess the subtlety of those 
masters of atticism, their delightful way of gossiping, 
their witty innuendo. But we shall have the 
dogmatic view of human nature, we will plunge into 
the ocean instead of taking a pleasant dip in shallow 
water, and we shall return laden with primeval 
pearls. All that appertains to the work of the 
human intellect is divine, and the more primeval, 
the more divine. It is said that M. Yillemain called 
M. Fauriel "an atheist in literature.'" He should 
have said & pantheist, which is not the same thing. 



The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE XL 

Hence we must look upon philology or the study 
of ancient literatures as a science having a distinct 
object, viz. the knowledge of the human intellect. 
To consider those literatures merely as a means of 
intellectual culture is, in my opinion, to deprive them 
of their true dignity. To restrict their influence 
merely to contemporary literary production is to 
take a still narrower view. In a remarkable lecture 
delivered before the Congress of German philologists 
at Bonn in 1841, M. Welcker in endeavouring to 
define the accepted meaning of philology {fiber die 
Bedentung der Philologie), looked at it almost ex- 
clusively in that way (94). To M. Welcker philology 
is the science of classic literatures, that is, of model 
literatures, which, offering us as they do, the 
general type of higher learning ought to suit all 
peoples and be made to serve equally in their educa- 
tion. M. Welcker appreciates the study of anti- 
quity above all on account of the happy influence 
it may exercise on the literature and aesthetic educa- 
tion of the modern nations. The ancients are to him 
models and objects of admiration rather than objects 
of science. Still, M. Welcker does not altogether 
preach servile imitation. What he asks for is an 
intimate and secret influence, analogous to that of 
electricity, which without communicating anything 
of its own, develops a similar state in other bodies ; 
what he blames is the attempt of those who pretend 
to find in the modern peoples sufficient material for 



The Future of Science. 189 



a moral and esthetic education. Consequently M. 
Welcker only looks upon philology from the point of 
view of the classical scholar, and not from the point 
of view of the savant. As far as we are concerned, it 
seems to us that we should be placing philosophy in 
a much more certain and higher sphere, by investing 
it with a scientific and philosophical value with 
reference to the history of the human intellect, than 
by reducing it to a mere means of education and 
literary culture. If modern nations could find in them- 
selves a sufficiently intellectual leaven, a running 
and primary source of original inspirations we should 
be careful indeed not to trouble that vein of fresh supply 
by an admixture of the antique. Tone in literature 
is the more beautiful in proportion to its being more 
true and more pure ; to the scholar and to the critic 
belong the universal use and intelligent appreciation 
of the most diverse forms ; a foreign note, on the 
contrary will trouble and worry the original and 
creative poet. But admitting that modern times 
could find a poesy and a philosophy as truly repre- 
sentative of them as Homer and Plato are repre- 
sentatives of the Greece of their days, even then the 
study of antiquity would have its value from the 
point of view of science. Besides ; M. Welcker's 
considerations would not constitute a valid apology 
for all philological studies. If ancient literatures 
are only cultivated for the sake of finding models, 
what would be the use of cultivating those which, 
though having their original beauties, do not lend 
themselves to our imitation ? We should be obliged 
to confine ourselves to the study of Greek and Latin 
antiquity, and even within those limits, the study 
of masterpieces only would have its value. But the 
literatures of the East which M. Welcker treats with 
great contempt, and the second rate works of classical 
literature, if less suitable as models for taste, some- 
times present more philosophical interest and teach 
us more of the history of the human intellect than 
the most finished monuments of the ages of perfection. 



190 TJie Future of Science. 

The fact of classical languages has, moreover, 
nothing absolute in it. The Greek and Latin litera- 
tures are classical so far as we are concerned, not 
because they are the most excellent of literatures, 
but because they have been imposed upon us by 
history. This fact of an ancient language being 
selected to serve as a basis for the education, and 
concentrating around it the literary efforts, of a nation 
which has made for itself a new idiom long ago, is not 
as people would too often lead us to believe the effect 
of an arbitrary choice, but purely and simply one of 
the most general laws of language, a law that owes 
nothing to the whim or to the literary opinions 
of this or that epoch. In fact, to invest this deno- 
mination of classical with an absolute sense and to 
restrict it to one or two idioms as if they were pre- 
destined by an essential privilege resulting from their 
nature to be the educational instrument of all peoples 
is to misapprehend greatly the role and nature of 
classical languages. Their existence is a universal 
fact in the linguistic organism, and their selection, 
just as it implies nothing absolute with regard to all 
peoples, has nothing arbitrary for any of them. 

The general history of languages has long ago 
demonstrated the fact that in every country where 
there has been an intellectual movement, there has 
already occurred the formation of two strata of lan- 
guages ; not through the metbod of one language 
abruptly displacing the other, but through that of 
the second emerging by imperceptible transformations 
from the dust of the first. The ancient language has 
been replaced everywhere by a vulgar idiom which in 
reality does not constitute a different language but 
rather a different age from that which preceded it ; 
the former is more scholarly, more synthetical, full of 
inflections expressing the most delicate connections 
of thought, richer in its order of ideas, albeit that 
this order of ideas was comparatively more restricted ; 
it is, in short an image of primeval spontaneity, in 
which the mind confounded the elements in one 



The Future of Science. 191 

obscure unity, and lost in the whole the analytical 
view of parts. On the contrary, the second dialect, 
corresponding with a clearer and more explicit pro- 
gress of analysis, divides what the ancients united 
and shatters the mechanism of the ancient language 
in order to provide each idea, each connection with 
its isolated expression. 

By taking the one after the other the languages 
of every country in which humanity has a history it 
would be possible to verify that progress, which is 
the progress of the human intellect itself. In India 
it is Sanskrit with its admirable wealth of gram- 
matical forms with its eight cases, its six moods, its 
numerous terminations, its involved and powerfully 
knitted phraseology which in its modification pro- 
duces Pali, Prakrit and Kawi, dialects less rich, 
more simple and clear which in their turn are 
analyzed into dialects still more popular, the Hindu, 
Bengali, Mahratta and other vulgar dialects of 
Hindustan, and in their turn become dead, learned 
and sacred languages ; Pali -in the island of Ceylon 
andlndo-China, Prakrit among the Dja'inas, Kawi, in 
the islands of Java, Bali, and Madura. In the region 
of India to the Caucasus, Zend with its long and 
complicated words, its absence of prepositions and 
its mode of supplying them by means of cases formed 
by inflection, thePersian of the cuneiform inscriptions, 
so perfect in its structure, are replaced by modem 
Persian, almost as decrepit as English which has 
reached its last stage of erosion. In the region of the 
Caucasus modern Armenian and Georgian succeeded 
to the ancient Armenian and Georgian. In Europe 
the position of the ancient Sclavonic, the Teutonic, 
the Gothic, the Norman, is below that of the Scla- 
vonic and Germanic idioms. And to wind up, it is 
from the analysis of Greek and Latin, subjected to the 
process of decomposition of the barbarous centuries 
that the. modern Greek and the neo-Lacin languages 
have sprung. 

The Semitic languages, though dead languages 



192 Tlie Future of Science. 

to a greater degree than the Indo-Germanic ones 
have followed an analogous course. Hebrew, their 
most ancient type, disappears at a remote period, 
to leave the field absolutely to Chaldaic, Samaritan, 
Syriac, dialects more analytically constructed, longer 
and sometimes more lucid also, which in their turn 
become successively merged in Arabic. But Arabic 
in its turn too scholarly for the everyday use of 
strangers who are unable to observe its delicate 
and varied inflections, beholds solecism usurping the 
common right and in consequence by the side of 
the literal language, which becomes the exclusive 
property of the schools, there springs up the vulgar 
Arabic, more simple in its system and less rich in 
grammatical forms. The languages of the West and 
of Central Asia present several analogous phenomena 
in the " superposition " of the ancient Chiuese and 
the modern Chinese, of the ancient Thibetan and 
the modern Thibetan, and the Malay languages in 
that ancient language to which Marsden and Craw- 
furd have given the name of "grand Polynesian" 
which was the language of Javanese civilization and 
which Balbi calls the Sanskrit of Oceania. 

But what becomes of the ancient language ousted 
in that way from everyday use by the new idiom ? 
Its role, though changed is, for all that, none the 
less remarkable. If it ceases to be the intermediary 
of the ordinary intercourse of life, it becomes the 
learned and nearly always the sacred language of 
the people that decomposed it. Imbedded, as a rule 
in an antique literature, the storehouse of religious 
and national traditions, it remains the patrimony of 
savants, the language appertaining to the mental and 
spiritual domain, and it generally requires many 
centuries before the modern idiom in its turn dares 
to emerge from vulgar existence to venture into the 
order of things intellectual. In one word, it becomes 
classical, sacred, liturgical, correlative teims accord- 
ing to the country where the fact is verified and 
signifying uses which as a rule accompany one 



T7ie Future of Science. 193 

another. For instance, among the Orientals where 
the antique book never fails to become sacred, 
religious dogmas and the liturgy are generally con- 
fided to the custody of that obscure, scarcely known 
language. 

Hence, it may be taken as a general fact of the 
history of languages that each nation finds its 
classical language in the very conditions of its 
history and that its choice is not an arbitrary one. 
It is also a fact that, among nations not very far 
advanced in mental culture, all matters of the intel- 
lectual order are confided to that language, and that 
among the peoples whose more energetic intellectual 
activity has forged a new instrument better adapted 
to their needs, the antique tongue preserves a grave 
and religious role ; that of accomplishing the educa- 
tion of the faculty of thought and of its initiation into 
the things of the intellectual world. 

Modern language being, in fact, wholly made up 
of the remains of the ancient, it becomes impossible 
to master it in a scientific manner, except by bring- 
ing back those fragments to the primeval structure, 
where each of them had its value. Experience 
shows how imperfect is the knowledge of modern 
languages with those whose knowledge is not based 
on the knowledge of the antique language from 
which each modern idiom sprang. The secret of 
grammatical mechanisms, of etymologies and con- 
sequently of orthography being altogether contained 
in the ancient dialect, the logical reason of the rules 
of grammar is utterly lost to those who consider 
those rules in an isolated way and irrespective of 
their origin. Routine, in that case, becomes the 
only method possible as in every case where practical 
knowledge is aimed at to the exclusion of theoretical 
reason. One knows the language as the workman 
who employs the methods of geometry without 
understanding them, knows geometry. Besides, 
being indebted for its form to dissolution, modern 
language will fail to imbue with life the shreds it has 



194 The Future of Science. 



endeavoured to assimilate, unless it reverts to the 
ancient synthesis in order to find the stamp that 
must invest with a new unity those scattered elements. 
Hence its inability to constitute itself by itself into 
a literary language ; hence the utility of those men 
who at given periods, had to provide its education 
by the antique, to preside as it were at its " classi- 
cality." Without this necessary operation, the vulgar 
tongue always remains what it was at its origin, a 
popular jargon begotten by the incapacity for syn- 
thesis, and inapplicable to matters intellectual. Not 
that we should mourn for the loss of synthesis. 
Analysis is something much more advanced and corre- 
sponds to a more scientific condition of the human 
intellect. But it is incapable of creating anything 
by itself. Eminently fit to decompose and to lay 
bare the secret springs of language, it is powerless 
to reconstruct the ensemble it has destroyed, unless 
it resorts for this to the ancient system, and derives 
from its commerce with antiquity its spirit of con- 
structing a whole, and of scholarly organization. 
This is the law to which all modern languages had to 
submit in their development. And the processes by 
which the vulgar tongue has risen to the dignity of 
literary language are the very ones by which one 
may attain to a perfectly intellectual grasp of it. 
The model of philological education is traced in each 
country by the training undergone by the vulgar idiom 
in order to gain its patent of nobility. 

The historical utility of the study of ancient lan- 
guage is in no way inferior to its philological and 
^literary utility. The sacred book to the antique 
nation was that in which were recorded all the 
national recollections ; it was consulted by every one 
in search of his genealogy, the meaning of all the 
acts of civil, political and religious life. The 
classical languages are in many respects, the sacred 
book of the modern peoples. They contain the roots 
of the nation, her titles, the sense of her words, 
consequently of her institutions. Without it a great 



The Future of Science. 195 

many things would remain unintelligible and his- 
torically unexplicable. Every modern idea is grafted 
upon an antique stem, all actual development is the 
emanation from a precedent. To consider humanity 
from an isolated point of its existence is to condemn 
one's self for ever to remain in ignorance of it ; it 
has no sense except as a whole. There lies the prize 
of erudition ; in the re-creation of the past, in the 
exploration of every part of humanity ; whether it be 
conscious or not of its mission, erudition prepares 
the basis necessary to philosophy. 

More modest education, compelled to set itself 
limits, and unable to take in the whole of the past, 
adheres to the portion of antiquity, which, as applic- 
able to each nation, is classic. And this choice which 
can never be doubtful is still less doubtful with us 
than with any other people. Our civilization, our in- 
stitutions, our languages have been constructed out of 
Greek and Latin elements. Hence whether we like 
it or not, Greek and Latin are forced upon us by facts. 
No law, no rule has given them or can deprive them 
of this character which they derive from history, just 
as education among the Chinese or Arabs will never 
mean the acquiring of the vulgar Arabic or Chinese, 
but will always mean the acquisition of literal Arabic 
or Chinese, just as modern Greece owes its slight 
revival of literary life solely to the study of ancient 
Greek, so will the study of our classical languages, 
inseparable from one another, always constitute with 
us, and by the force of circumstances, the basis of 
education. Other nations, even European ones, 
such as for instance the Sclavonic nations, nay the 
Germanic peoples themselves though they were later 
on so intimately connected with Latinism, may look 
for their education elsewhere : they would at most 
voluntarily deprive themselves of an admirable source 
of the beautiful and the true ; but they would not 
deprive themselves of direct intercourse with their 
ancestors. But as for us, it would be tantamount to 
denying our origin, to cut off all connection with our 



196 The Future of Science. 

forbears. Philological education cannot possibly 
consist in the study of modern language, any more 
than moral and political education can mean the 
exclusive study of actual ideas and institutions, we 
must go back to the primary source and take our 
stand on the road of the past to arrive subsequently 
at the full understanding of the present by the same 
road over which humanity travelled. 



The Future of Science. 197 



CHAPTER XII. 

Consequently in my opinion the sole means of con- 
stituting the apologia of philological sciences and of 
learning in general is to group them into a whole 
and to bestow upon them the title of Sciences of 
humanity, in contrast to the sciences of nature. 
Without this, there is no object in science, and it 
exposes itself to all the objections so often directed 
against it. 

The modesty of the means it employs to attain 
its end should not be argued as a reproach. Cuvier 
dissecting snails would have raised a smile from 
the frivolous minded who do not understand the 
processes of science. The student of chemistry 
manipulating his various apparatus looks very much 
like a navvy, and still he accomplishes the most 
liberal work of all, the inquiry into what is. M. de 
Maistre has depicted modern science somewhere as 
having " its arms full of books and instruments of 
all kinds, pale with vigils and overwork, staggering 
along on the road to truth, quivering and inkstained, 
and bending its forehead wrinkled with algebra 
towards the ground." A grand seigneur like M. de 
Maistre must in fact have felt greatly humiliated 
by such painful investigations, and truth was very 
irreverent indeed by putting so many difficulties in 
his way. He must have preferred the more easy 
method of " Oriental science, free, isolated, flying 
rather than plodding along, presenting in its whole 
appearance something aerial and supernatural, letting 



] 9 8 Tlie Future of Science. 

the winds toy with its hair escaping from under 
an Eastern mitre, its spurning foot seemingly only 
touching the earth in order to get an impetus for its 
flight." It is the characteristic and the pride of 
modern science to attain its most lofty results only 
through the most scrupulous methods of experiment 
and to arrive at the knowledge of the highest laws of 
nature, its hands resting on its apparatus. It leaves 
to. old-fashioned a priori the doubtful honour of seek- 
ing its support only in itself; it prides itself upon 
being nothing but the mere echo of facts, upon 
mixing no invention of its own with its discoveries. 

The most humble methods are in this way ennobled 
by their results. The highest laws of the physical 
sciences have been ascertained by manipulations 
differing very little from those of the artisan. If the 
highest truths can as it were emanate from the 
alembic and the crucible, why should they not 
equally be the result of the study of the remains of 
the past, covered with the dust of ages ? Shall the 
philologist who toils on words and syllables be less 
honoured than the student of chemistry labouring in 
his laboratory ? 

The few results attained by certain branches of 
philological studies constitutes in itself no objection 
against them. For on embarking upon an order of 
researches it is impossible to guess beforehand what 
may result from them, any more than one can know, 
in digging a mine, the wealth it may contain. The 
veins of precious metal do not lend themselves 
to prognostication. We may be on our way to the 
discovery of a new world ; the laborious investiga- 
tions undertaken may also lead to the sole conclusion 
that nothing is to be gained from them. But do not 
say that he who has merely attained this altogether 
negative result has wasted his time. For apart from 
the fact of there not being any absolutely fruitless 
research or any which does not lead either directly or 
accidentally to some discovery, the investigator will 
save others the useless trouble he gave himself. A 



Tlie Future of Science. 199 

good many orders of researches will remain in that 
way like mines, exploited at some previous period, 
but abandoned since, because they did not sufficiently 
reward the workers for their pains and because they 
no longer afford hope to future explorers. We 
should, however, bear in mind that results which at 
a given moment may appear altogether insignificant 
may turn out to be most important in connection 
with new discoveries and new comparisons. Science 
always presents itself to man as an unknown country, 
he often enters upon it by an out-of-the-way corner 
which fails to give him an idea of the whole. The 
first navigators who discovered America were far 
from suspecting the exact forms and true relations 
to one another of those parts of this new world. 
Was it an isolated island, a group of islands, a vast 
continent or the prolongation of another continent ? 
Only the subsequent explorers could answer these 
questions. The same in science ; the most important 
discoveries have often been brought about in a round- 
about way; "on the slant" if I may so express it. 
Very few problems have been deliberately grappled 
with at the outset, "taken at the core." It was 
through fragmentary translations that Anquetil- 
Duperron began the study of Zend literature, as in 
the Middle Ages it was through very imperfect 
Arabic versions that the scientific authors of Greece 
acquired their first knowledge of the West. The 
celebrated passage of Clement of Alexandria on the 
Egyptian writings attracted little or no notice until 
the day when, in consequence of other discoveries, it 
became the key to the study of Egyptian monuments. 
The accessory may in this way become the principal 
in consequence of a change of aspect (95). The theo- 
logians who in the Middle Ages, occupied the prin- 
cipal scene are very secondary personages to us. 
The rare savants and thinkers who at that period 
conducted their investigations by the true method, 
and who at the time remained unnoticed or w T ere 
persecuted, occupy in our opinion the first and fore- 



200 The Future of Science. 

most position, for only their method has been con- 
tinued ; they alone had issue. No kind of research 
should be branded at the outset as useless or puerile ; 
one does not know what it may bring forth, nor the 
value it may acquire from a more advanced stand- 
point. 

Physical science affords a great number of instances 
of isolated discoveries which for years remained 
almost without significance and only acquired im- 
portance long afterwards through the accession of 
new facts. For a long while students may pursue 
an apparently barren track, which they abandon at 
last in despair, when all of a sudden there appears an 
unexpected light ; the discovery bursts forth at two 
or three points at the same time, and what until then 
had looked as a mere isolated and insignificant fact 
becomes in a novel combination, the basis of a whole 
theory. There is nothing more difficult to foretell 
than the importance with which posterity will invest 
this or that order of facts, the researches that will be 
abandoned, the researches that will be continued. 
The attractive properties of yellow amber were 
merely looked upon by the ancient students of 
physics as a curious fact until a complete scientific 
theory was constructed around that first atom. We 
must not expect a hard and fast system of logic in 
the order of scientific investigations, any more than 
we must ask the explorer to give us beforehand a 
plan of his discoveries. In looking for one thing one 
may stumble upon another, in the pursuit of a mere 
vision, one may hit upon a magnificent reality. 
Accident, chance, on the other hand claims its share. 
Universal exploration, a beating-up of the game on 
all sides, that and that only is the sole possible 
method. " We must look upon the fabric of science, 
as we would upon that of nature ; " said Cuvier. 
"Each fact occupies its defined position, which 
cannot be occupied except by that fact." That 
which has no value in itself may possess a great deal 
as a necessary means. 



The Future of Science. 201 

The critical consideration of an object is often 
more serious than the object itself. One may com- 
ment seriously on a madrigal or a frivolous novel ; 
grave scholars hRve devoted their lives to comment- 
ing works the an'hors of which only aimed at giving 
pleasure. All that belongs to the past deserves 
serious attention. Some day Beranger will become 
an object of scientific comment and belong to the 
domain of the Academie des Inscriptions. Would 
not Moliere, who was so apt to ridicule the savants 
whose name ended in us, be more or less surprised 
at having fallen into their hands ? The profane and 
every now and then even they who call themselves 
thinkers laugh at the minute investigations of the 
past by archaeology. Such researches, if their aim 
were strictly confined to their own domain, would no 
doubt be nothing better than more or less interesting 
fancies of the amateur, but they become invested 
with the dignity of science, nay, in a certain sense 
sacred if one admits their connection with the know- 
ledge of antiquity, which it is impossible to attain 
save through the knowledge of monuments. There 
are a great many studies which possess no value 
except with the view of an ulterior purpose. It 
would be difficult perhaps to find anything philoso- 
phical in the theory of Greek accentuation, but is 
that a reason to vote it useless ? Certainly not, for 
without it, the thorough knowledge of Greek would 
be impossible. A like system of exclusion would 
lead to the revival of the witty argument, by which, 
in Voltaire's story, the education of Jeannot is sim- 
plified with a vengeance. 

Besides, how many works are there which though 
possessing no absolute value, were highly important 
in their own days, on account of their opposition to 
rooted prejudices. We do not learn a great deal from 
Naude's Apology for great men lurongly suspected 
of magic, nevertheless it may have exercised true 
influence in its own days. How many books of our 
own century will be judged in the same way by 



-" 



202 TJie Future of Science. 

posterity? Writings intended to combat an error 
disappear with the error they combated. When a 
result has been attained, it is difficult to realize the 
trouble its attainment has cost. It wanted a genius 
to conquer the domain that afterwards may have 
become a child's. 

The researches relating to the cuneiform inscrip- 
tions which constitute one of the most important of 
Oriental studies in the actual condition of science 
afford one of the most curious instances of studies 
worthy of being pursued with the greatest zeal, not- 
withstanding the uncertainty of their results. I 
leave aside the Persian inscriptions, the explanation 
of which is complete ; T am alluding to the Median, 
Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, which, even 
according to those who have arduously laboured at 
them, remain undeciphered. How far they will 
continue to resist the learned onslaughts of the 
savants, it is impossible to say. But granting the 
most discouraging hj^pothesis, supposing they will 
remain an enigma for ever, those who have devoted 
their labours to them will none the less deserve as 
well of science, as if, like Champollion, they had 
restored a whole world ; for even if this happy result 
should not be realized, its realization did not alto- 
gether belong to the impossibilities, and there was 
no means of knowing until they had tried. 

In the actual condition of science, there is no work 
more urgently needed than a critical catalogue of the 
manuscripts contained in the various libraries. Those 
who have been engaged in these researches know how 
utterly insufficient they all are to convey an exact 
idea, how for instance, those of the Bibliotheque 
Nationale are full of mistakes and gaps. This, at the 
first blush, is a very humble undertaking, for which 
the merest pupil of the Ecole des Chartes * would 
suffice. Nothing of the kind. There is no work, 

* The Ecole des Chartes is almost equivalent to our Record 
Office of which the Master of the Bolls has the custody, but it 
admits students subsidized by the State. — Transl. 



The Future of Science. 203 

requiring a wider knowledge, and all our most: eminent 
scientific men, each examining the manuscripts within 
the most restricted circle of their own specific know- 
ledge, would scarcely suffice to carry out the task in 
a thoroughly sufficient manner. And still, learned 
research will be hampered and remain incomplete 
until this work be done in a final manner. Even the 
Jews admit that in another hundred years the Tal- 
mudic-Eabbinical literature will no longer attract 
students. When these books shall cease to have a 
religious interest, no one will have the courage to 
tackle this chaos. And still they contain vast trea- 
sures to the critic and the student of the history of 
the human intellect. Had we not be 'iter be quick 
and utilize the five or six men of the present genera- 
tion who alone are competent to let in the light 
upon these precious documents ? I can assure you 
that the few hundred thousand francs a Minister of 
Public Education would devote to this would be 
better spent than three-fourths of the money rsually 
spent upon the advancement of literature. But this 
minister should at the same time and beforehand don 
his armour against the epigrams of the " boobies " 
and even of literary men who will " fail to conceive 
why the money of the rate and tax payer should be 
spent on such ' tomfoolery.' " 

It is the law of science as of every human under- 
taking to draw its plans on a large scale and with 
a great deal that is superfluous around them. Man- 
kind finally assimilates only a small number of the 
elements of its food. But the parts that have been 
eliminated, are they therefore useless, have they 
played no part in the act of nutrition ? Certainly 
not ; they have been useful in causing the remainder 
to pass, they were so closely bound up with the 
nutritive portion that the latter without the super- 
fluous could have neither been taken nor digested. 
Open a collection of antique epigraphs, and out of a 
hundred only one or two perhaps will be of real 
interest. But if the others had not been deciphered 



204 TJie Future of Science. 

how should we have known that among them there 
were not some still more important ? To have pub- 
lished those that seem useless cannot even be 
deemed a work of superfluity, seeing that this or that 
one which appears to be utterly insignificant now 
may become of capital importance in a series of in- 
vestigations which at present we cannot foresee. 

The general design of the forms of humanity is like 
those colossal figures intended to be seen from a dis- 
tance and of which each line does not show as distinct 
and clear as that of a statue or a picture. The forms 
are largely outlined, there is a great dea] too much, 
and if we wished to reduce it to the strictly necessary, 
we should have to take away a good deal. In history 
the outline is coarse, each feature instead of being 
represented by an individual or by a small number of 
men is represented by large masses, by a nation, by 
a system of philosophy or by a form of religion. On 
the monuments at Persepolis the nations tributary to 
the King of Persia are represented by a single indi- 
vidual wearing the dress, and carrying in his hands 
the products, of his country ; the latter to be offered 
in homage to the suzerain. Here we have a picture 
of humanity ; each nation, each form of intellect, of 
religion, of morality leaves behind it a short sum- 
mary, which is as it were the extract and the quint- 
essence of it, and which is often contained in one 
word. This abridged and expressive type remains as 
the representation of the millions of men who never 
emerged from obscurity, who lived and who died in 
order to be grouped under that sign. Greece, Persia, 
India, Judaism, Islamism, Stoicism, Mysticism, all 
these forms were necessary in order to complete the 
grandiose figure, for in order to be represented in a 
manner worthy of them, not a few individuals, but 
enormous masses were needed. Pictorial representa- 
tion by masses is the grand process of Providence. 
There is a marvellous grandeur and a very deep 
philosophy in the way in which the ancient Hebrews 
conceived the government of God, treating nations 



The Future of Science. 205 

like individuals, establishing between all the members 
of a community a perfect a mutual and reciprocal 
responsibility and dispensing with a majestic "there- 
abouts " his distributive justice. God only sets Him- 
self the large, general plan. Each created being- 
finds subsequently in himself the instincts which 
make his lot as mild as possible. The thought of 
how few traces are left behind by men, even by those 
who seem to play a principal part is calculated to fill 
us with terrible sorrow. And when we reflect that 
millions upon millions of creatures were born and 
died in that way, without leaving the slightest memo- 
rial, one experiences the same terror as one would 
feel in presence of utter annihilation or the infinite. 
Only think for a moment of those wretched exist- 
ences scarcely characterized by anything, which 
among the savages appear and disappear like the 
indistinct visions of a dream. Only think for a 
moment of the countless generations which have 
been piled upon one another in our country ceme- 
teries. Dead, dead for ever and aye ? . . . No they 
live in humanity ; they served to build the great 
Babel which uprises towards the sky, and each layer 
of which means a people. 

I am going to tell you about the most charming 
recollection of my early youth; the thought of it 
almost brings tears to my eyes. One day my mother 
and I in one of those short excursions in the stony 
byways on the coast of Brittany which leave such 
sweet memories with all those who wander there, 
came upon a small village church, surrounded as 
usual by the churchyard, and we sat down to rest 
ourselves. The walls of the church of rough-hewn 
granite and covered with moss, the neighbouring 
houses built of primitive blocks, the closely serried 
tombs, the mouldering and overthrown crosses, the 
numerous skulls ranged in tiers on the steps of the 
tiny house which served as an ossuary (96), all these 
showed that people had been buried there from the 
most remote days, when the Saints of Brittany had 



206 The Future of Science. 

made their appearance for the first time on these 
waves. On that day the terror-stricken feeling at 
the immense oblivion and the vast silence amidst 
which human life is swallowed up was such as to 
haunt me still, and to have become one of the 
elements of my moral existence. Among all these 
simple, humble folk that he there, in the shadow of 
the old trees, not one, not a single one will live in 
the future. Not a single one has stamped his acts 
on the grand movement of things, not a single one 
will count in the final statistics of those who have 
given the impulse to the ever-moving wheel. In 
those days I served the God of my infancy, and an 
upward look at the stone cross on the steps of which 
I was seated, a glance at the tabernacle visible through 
the windows of the church was sufficient to explain 
all this to me. And besides, the sea was but at a 
stone's throw, so were the rocks and the foam- crested 
waves, I could sniff the winds from heaven, which 
penetrating to the very brain, awakened a kind of 
undefinable and indescribable feeling of freedom and 
expansion. My mother also was by my side ; and it 
seemed to me that the humblest life was capable of 
reflecting heaven through pure love and individual 
affection. I considered those who lay there happy. 
Since then I have shifted my tent and I account for 
this vast darkness in a different way. They are not 
dead those obscure children of the hamlet, for Brittany 
still lives, and they have contributed to the making 
of Brittany ; they played no part in the great drama, 
but they formed part of the vast chorus, without 
which the drama would be cold and lifeless and 
destitute of sympathetic actors. And when Brittany 
shall be no longer there, France will still be there ; 
and when France is gone, humanity will remain, and 
people will go on saying; "In days gone by, there 
was a noble country in sympathy with all that was 
beautiful, whose destiny it w r as to suffer for the sake 
of humanity and to fight in its behalf." On that day 
the lowliest peasant who had but a few steps to go 



The Future of Science. 207 



from his hut to his tomb, shall like ourselves, live iu 
that immortal name (97) ; he will have contributed 
his small share in the great result. And when 
humanity is gone, God will remain, and humanity 
will have contributed to the making of Him, and in 
his vast bosom all that lived will live again, and then 
it will be true to the very letter that not a glass of 
water, not a word that has furthered the Divine work 
of progress will be lost. 

That is the law of humanity; an enormous and 
lavish expenditure of the individual, a contemptuous 
agglomeration of human beings (I can fancy the 
modeller flinging his material about anyhow, and 
taking little or no heed of three-fourths of it that 
falls to the ground) ; the immense majority fated to 
enact " the wall flowers " at the grand ball conducted 
by destiny, or rather to figure in one of those multiple 
personages which the ancient drama designated as 
the chorus. Are they useless ? No ; for they also 
have made their show; without them the lines 
would have been thin and paltry ; they have con- 
tributed to the splendour of the whole, which is 
more original and more grand. This or that nun 
who vegetates unnoticed, forgotten in her convent 
seems altogether lost as far as the living picture of 
humanity is concerned. Not at all; for she con- 
tributes to the sketch of monastic life ; she enters as 
an atom in the grand mass of black necessary to that. 
Humanity would not have been complete without 
monastic life ; monastic life could only be repre- 
sented by a numberless group ; hence all those who 
have made part of the group, however completely 
they may be forgotten, have had their share in the 
representation of one of the most essential forms of 
humanity. In short, there are two ways of in- 
fluencing the world, either by one's individual force, 
or by the body of which one forms a part, by the 
ensemble in which one occupies a place. In the 
latter case the action of the individual seems veiled ; 
but on the other hand it is more powerful, and the 



208 TJie Future of Science. 

proportional part accruing to each is much stronger 
than if he remained isolated. Those poor women, 
divided, would have been vulgar, commonplace, and 
would have made no figure in humanity ; united, 
they represent energetically one of the world's most 
essential elements ; sweet, timid and pensive piety. 

No one, therefore, is useless in humanity. The 
savage who scarcely exists, serves at any rate as 
waste power. And as I have already said, it was 
but fit that the plan of the forms of humanity should 
be superabundantly provided for. The belief in 
immortality implies nothing else than that invincible 
faith in the future. No action is utterly lost. This 
or that insect which had no other vocation than to 
group under a living form a certain number of mole- 
cules and to eat a leaf accomplished something 
which still bears consequences in the eternal series of 
causes. 

Science, like all the other facets of human life 
must be represented in that large w T ay. Scientific 
results should not be arrived at in a meagre and 
isolatad manner. The final residue which will 
remain in the domain of the human intellect must 
necessarily be extracted from a vast mass of things. 
Just as no man is useless in humanity, so is no 
labourer useless in the field of science. Here, as 
everywhere else, there must be an immense waste of 
power. When we reflect upon the enormous amount 
of intellectual work and activity that has been 
engulphed for the last three centuries and even in 
our days in the periodical publications, in the reviews, 
etc. ; we experience the same feeling that comes 
over us at seeing the eternal round of generations 
swallowed up by the tomb, as it were putting one 
another down. But this is bound to be ; for if every- 
thing that is said and discovered were assimilated 
there and then, it would be like a man taking abso- 
lutely nothing but what is nutritious. After the 
lapse of a century a genius of the first order is re- 
duced to two or three pages. The score of volumes 



The Future of Science. 209 

of his complete works remain as a necessary develop- 
ment of his fundamental idea. A volume for each 
idea. The eighteenth century is summed up, as far 
as we are concerned in a few pages expressing its 
general tendencies, its spirit, its method ; all this is 
hidden away in thousands of books, forgotten by this 
time and teeming with gross errors. The biggest 
library could be filled with the books relating to one 
controversy only, such as for instance that of the 
Eeformation, of Jansenism, of Thomaism. All this 
expenditure of intellectual force is not lost, provided 
those controversies have contributed one single atom 
to the fabric of modern thought. A great many 
literary lives, apparently wasted, have been, in fact, 
useful and necessary. Who, at present, bestows a 
single thought on this or that grammarian of Alex- 
andria, illustrious in his own time ? And still he is 
not dead ; for he helped to sketch Alexandria, and 
Alexandria remains an immense fact in the history 
of mankind. 

We can conceive no idea of the largeness of the 
method by which the work of 'science should be 
undertaken in a condition of humanity scientifically 
organized. I may suppose that it took a thousand 
laborious lives to collect all the local varieties of a 
certain legend, such as for instance, that of the 
Wandering Jew. It is by no means certain that such 
labour would lead to any serious result ; but it matters 
not ; the mere possibility of finding in it some subtle 
induction, which by entering as an element into a 
more vast ensemble should reveal a feature of the 
system of things, would be sufficient to venture upon 
such an expenditure. For nothing is too dear when 
it becomes a question of providing a single additional 
atom to truth. Are not thousands of lives lost every 
day, what is called absolutely lost, in the furthering 
of the arts of luxury, in contributing a mere scrap 
of nourishment for the pleasures of the idle, etc. 
Humanity, after all, has a great deal of strength 
which absolutely perishes for want of employment 



210 The Future of Science. 

and guidance. May not we hope that one day all 
this neglected or utterly wasted strength will be 
applied to serious things or to the attainment of 
supra-sensitive results ? 

There are often a great many false conceptions 
with regard to what will be the mode of life in the 
future ; it is thought that immortality in literature 
will consist in being read by future generations. 
This is an illusion we had better abandon. We shall 
not be read by future generations, we know it, we 
rejoice in it and congratulate ourselves on it, But 
we shall have contributed to the manner of looking 
at things, we shall have enabled the future to do with- 
out reading us, we shall have accelerated the day 
w r hen the knowledge of the world shall equal the 
world, when the subject and the object having 
become identified, God will be complete. By ac- 
celerating progress, we accelerate our death. We 
are not writers who are studied for their style of 
exposition and their classical touch ; we are thinkers, 
and our thought is a scientific act. Do people still 
read the w r orks of Newton, of Lavoisier, of Euler ? 
Their books are facts ; they have had their place in 
the series of the development of science ; after which 
their mission is at an end. Only the name of the 
author remains in the annals of the human intellect 
like the names of great statesmen and great captains. 
The real savant never thinks of the immortality of 
his book, but of the immortality of his discovery. 
In the same way we try to enrich the human intel- 
lect by our observations, rather than to make it read 
the expression itself of our thoughts. We would 
wish our name to remain rather than our book. Our 
immortality consists in the insertion of an imperish- 
able element into the intellectual movement and in 
that sense we may say as of old ; Exegi monumentum 
cere prennius seeing that a result, an act in connec- 
tion with humanity is immortal by reason of the 
modification it introduces for evermore in the series 
of things. The results of this or that obscure book 



The Future of Science. 211 

which has crumbled to dust long since still last and 
will last for ever. The destiny of the history of litera- 
ture is to replace to a vast extent the direct perusal 
of the works of the human intellect. Who nowadays 
reads the polemical works of Voltaire ? And still, 
are there any works that have ever exercised a 
greater influence ? The study of the authors of the 
seventeenth century is no doubt eminently useful to 
the knowledge of the intellectual condition of that 
period. Nevertheless I consider as good as wasted 
the time devoted to such study. There is nothing 
to be learned from it in the way of philosophical 
ideas and views, nor, I am bound to confess, do I 
conceive the result of a complete education to con- 
sist in the knowledge by heart of La Bruyere, Mas- 
sillon, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Boileau, all of whom 
have but little connection with us. On the other 
hand no young fellow can be said to have terminated 
his studies without being up in Villemain, Guizot, 
Thiers, Cousin, Quinet, Michelet, Lamartine, Sainte- 
Beuve. I yield to no one in my admiration of the 
seventeenth century in its proper place in the history 
of the human intellect but I revolt the moment this 
heavy style of thinking utterly devoid of critical 
acumen is held up as the model of absolute beauty. 
Heaven preserve us from such a book as " L'Histoire 
Universelle," the object of a kind of stereotyped 
admiration, the work of a belated theologian, by way 
of a text-book of historical philosophy for our liberal 
rising generation. 

The revolution which has transformed literature 
into journalism and periodical writing, which has 
reduced every work of the intellect to a work "of 
actuality" that will be forgotten in a short time 
naturally compels us to look at it from this stand- 
point. In this way the work of intellect ceases to 
be a monument in order to become a fact " a lever of 
opinion." Every one harnesses himself to the cen- 
tury for the purpose of dragging it in his own direc- 
tion ; the moment the impulse has been given, there 



212 The Future of Science. 

remains only the accomplished fact. All this suggests 
the conception of a state of things in which the 
privilege of writing will no longer be a right apart, 
but in which masses of individuals would only think 
of bringing into circulation this or that order of ideas 
without appending to them the label of their per- 
sonality. Periodical production has already reached 
with us a condition of exuberance such as to entail 
oblivion to an immense extent and the swallowing 
up of beautiful as well of mediocre productions. 
Happy the classics who came at a period when lite- 
rary individuality was so powerful. There are par- 
liamentary speeches of to-day assuredly as good as the 
best discourses of Demosthenes. Many of the forensic 
speeches of Chaix-d'Est-Ange will stand a favourable 
comparison w 7 ith the invectives of Cicero ; still 
Demosthenes and Cicero will continue to be pub- 
lished, admired, commented upon as classics, while 
the speeches of M. Guizot, of M. de Lamartine, of 
M. de Chaix-d'Est-Ange will live and die only in the 
columns of the iournals of the day after these 
speeches. 



The Future of Science. 213 



CHAPTER XIII. 

It is, therefore, of great importance to understand 
the rdle of the savant's labours and the manner in 
which he exercises his influence. His aim is not to 
be read, but to insert a stone in the great edifice. 
Scientific books are a fact ; the life of the savant 
may possibly be summed up in two or three results, 
the expression of which may consist of only a few 
lines or may disappear entirely in more advanced 
formulas. He may have recorded his researches in 
bulky volumes that will only be read by those who 
travel over the same special road that he did. His 
immortality does not lie there, but in the brief for- 
mula in which he has summed up his life and which 
in its more or less exact shape will become an element 
in the science of the future. 

Only art in which the form is inseparable from the 
matter goes down in its entirety to posterity. And 
one is compelled to admit that our worth does not 
lie in our form. The authors of our own century 
will be read very little, but they may take comfort, 
they will be talked of a great deal in the history of 
the human intellect. The monographers will read 
them, and will compose on them curious theses, as 
we do on d'Urfe, on La Boetie, on Bodin, etc. We 
compose none on Racine and Corneille ; for they are 
still read, and books are only written on books that 
are no longer read. 

Be this as it may, scientific and philosophical 
progress is subject to conditions utterly different 



214 TJie Future of Science. 



from those of art. Art is not exactly a matter of 
progress, but of variation of the ideal. Nearly every 
literature has as its origin the model of its perfec- 
tion. Science on the contrary advances by utterly 
opposite processes. By the side of its philosophical 
results which are never very long in becoming cur- 
rent, it has its special and technical part which is 
only intelligible to the learned. Nay, several 
sciences have as yet only that part and will probably 
never have any other. 

Scientific specialities are the scandal of men of 
the world, just as generalities are the scandal of 
the savants. It is the result of our deplorable habit 
of looking upon that which is general and philoso- 
phical as superficial, and upon that which is scholarly 
as heavy and impossible to be read. To preach 
philosophy to certain savants is tantamount to pro- 
claiming one's self a smatterer and a numskull. To 
preach science to men of the world means numbering 
one's self among the pedantic schoolmen. These 
are no doubt very absurd prejudices but they are not 
without their cause ; because philosophy up till now 
has scarcely been anything but fancy a priori and 
science has only been an insignificant display of 
learniug. The truth is, it seems to me, that speciali- 
ties mean nothing except with a view to generalities, 
but that again generalities are only possible by virtue 
of specialities; the truth is, that there is a vital 
science which deals with the whole of man and that 
this science must needs be based on all other par- 
ticular sciences, which are beautiful in themselves, 
but above all beautiful in their ensemble. The 
specials (if I may be allowed the expression) often 
make the mistake of thinking that the aim of then- 
work lies in that work itself, and on that account lay 
themselves open to ridicule, everything savouring of 
result alarms, and seems of no value to, them. No 
doubt, if they confined themselves to making war upon 
generalities advanced haphazard, upon superficial 
observations we could only applaud their severity. 



The Future of Science. 215 

But they often seem to set great store upon details 
themselves. I can perfectly well understand that a 
date happily ascertained, the recovery of the circum- 
stances attending an important fact, the elucidation 
of an obscure history may assume greater value than 
whole volumes of the kind frequently boasting the 
title of " history of philosophy." But truly, are such 
discoveries worth anything in themselves ? Does not 
it lie in the degree of their contribution to the found- 
ing of the true and serious philosophy of history of 
the future ? What does it matter to me whether 
Alexander died in 324 or in 325, whether the Battle 
of Plataea was fought on this or that hill, whether 
the succession of the Greek and Indo- Scythian Kings 
of Bactriana was effected in this or that order. Truly, 
how much better off am I for the fact of knowing 
that Asoka succeeded Bindusaro, and Kanerkes to I 
do not know whom. If scholarship meant nothing 
more than that, the Hermagoras of La Bruyere who 
knows the names of the architects of the Tower of 
Babel but who has not seen Versailles is the true 
scholar, and all the ridicule levelled at scholarship 
would be truly deserved, because vanity alone could 
sustain people in such researches, and only mediocre 
intellects could devote their lives to them. 

The moment it is thoroughly agreed that learning 
is only valuable by virtue of its results we cannot push 
the division of scientific work too far. In the actual 
condition of science, and above all of philological 
science the most useful work is that which brings to 
light new original sources. Until all the parts of 
science are elucidated by special monographs, the 
general works must be considered premature. And 
monographs are only possible on the condition of 
specialities within very severe limits. ■ In order to 
clear up a given point the whole intellectual region 
in which it is situated must have been gone through, 
we must have explored all the outskirts and be able 
to take our stand in the centre, and with a full know- 
ledge, of the subject. How much would not the works 



216 The Future of Science. 

on Oriental literature gain if their authors were as 
great specialists as the philologists who have created 
piecemeal the science of the classical literatures. 
The only works of use to science are those which may 
be thoroughly relied upon, and whose authors have 
acquired, through long habit, if not the privilege of 
infallibility, at least that vast knowledge which con- 
stitutes the assurance of the writer and the security 
of the readers. Without this nothing can be said to 
be definitely acquired, everything will constantly have 
to be done over again. One may say without exag- 
geration that two-thirds of the works relating to 
Oriental languages are not deserving of more confi- 
dence than a work on classical languages by a fair 
scholar in the fifth form. 

I should be sorry if on this point the drift of this 
work were misunderstood. I have eulogized poly- 
mathy and varied knowledge as a philosophical 
method, but I think that in the way of special work 
one cannot too rigorously restrict one's self to one's 
sphere. I like Leibnitz who under the common 
term of philosophy unites mathematics, the natural 
sciences, history and linguistic studies, but I cannot 
approve of a William Jones, who, without being a 
philosopher fritters away his activity on numberless 
subjects and who in a life extending over forty- seven 
years writes a Greek anthology, an "Arcadia," 
an epic poem on the discovery of Great Britain, 
translates the speeches of Isaeus, the Persian poems 
of Hafiz, the Sanskrit code of Manu, the drama of 
Sacontala, one of the Arabian poems called " Moalla- 
kat" at the same time that he writes " A Means for 
Preventing Eiots during Elections," and several other 
pamphlets on passing events, the whole " without 
prejudice " to his profession as a barrister. 

Still less can I forgive that culpable frittering 
away of a scientific existence which causes science 
to be looked upon as a means of business and robs 
the savant's life of its most precious moments. Did 
not Cuvier really waste his time when he devoted 



The Future of Science. 217 



hours upon hours that might have been so fruitful, to 
administrative functions which others might have 
discharged as well as he ? A man only excels in 
one thing ; I cannot conceive how one can thus 
admit in one's life a principal and an accessory 
aim. Only the principal has its value, existence has 
not two aims. If I did not believe that everything 
is sacred, that everything is of importance in the 
pursuit of the beautiful and true, I should consider 
as wasted the time devoted to anything else but 
special research. I can conceive the fact of a very 
vast, nay of a universal scope of life. That the 
thinker, the philosopher, the poet should be actively 
concerned in the affairs of his country, not in the 
small details of administration but in the general 
direction, well and good. But that the special savant 
after having written a work or so, or after having 
made a few discoveries should claim as a reward to 
be absolved from doing any more and to be allowed 
to enter the political arena is the sign of a paltry 
nature, of a man who has never understood the noble- 
ness of science. 

Hence, the true interests of science demand more 
than ever specialistic work and monographs. That 
each paving stone should have its history is a con- 
summation devoutly to be wished. There are as yet 
few branches in philology and history in which 
general work is possible with anything like full 
security. Nearly all the sciences have already 
' { enacted ' ' their grand histories ; the history of medi- , 
cine, the history of philosophy ; the history of philo- 
logy. Well, we may unhesitatingly affirm that, with 
the exception perhaps of the history of philosophy, 
not one of these histories is capable of adequate 
record, and that if the work of writing monographs 
does not assume more extensive proportions, will not 
be capable before another century. In fact, we 
cannot expect of him who undertakes those vast 
histories an equal special knowledge of all the parts 
of his subject. He will be obliged to trust for a 



218 The Future of Science. 

great many things to the works of others. And it so 
happens that on many important points, monographs 
are as yet utterly lacking, so that the author is 
reduced to gather here and there some sparse and 
second-hand notions, frequently very in exact. Let 
us take for instance, the history of medicine, one of 
the most curious and one of the most important with 
regard to the history of the human intellect. Let us 
suppose that a savant should undertake to rewrite in 
its ensemble the very imperfect work of Sprengel. 
By means of his personal knowledge and works already 
accomplished he might perhaps treat the ancient part 
in a definite manner. But what of Arabic medicine, 
mediaeval medicine, Indian medicine, Chinese medi- 
cine ? Granted even that he know Arabic, Chinese 
or Sanskrit and that he were capable of making 
useful monographies in one of these languages the 
whole of his life would not be sufficient to go even 
superficially over one of those fields still unexplored. 
Hence, in condemning -himself to be complete, he 
condemns himself to be superficial. His book will 
be valuable only in those parts where he applies a 
special knowledge ; then why not confine himself to 
those parts ? Why devote to worthless labour which 
is moreover fated to become useless the time he 
might employ so usefully in definite researches ? 
Why write long volumes among which one only may 
perhaps possess a real value ? It is pitiful to see 
a savant in order not to lose a chapter of his book, 
condemned to write the history of Chinese medicine 
under about the same conditions as a man writing the 
history of Greek medicine after some trashy Arabic 
or mediaeval work. And still he would be fatally 
condemned to do this by the very framework of his 
book. 

The following is a curious experiment and I would 
wager that it might be made without exception in 
connection with all general histories. Present those 
histories to each of the men who have a special 
knowledge of one of the parts of which they are 



Tlie Future of Science. 219 



composed and I am certain that each of them will 
find his own part execrably treated. Those who 
have studied Aristotle are of opinion that Bitter has 
badly summarized Aristotle, those who have studied 
stoicism that he has spoken superficially of stoicism. 
I once presented my learned friend Dr. Daremberg 
with a copy of u the History of Philology " by Grae- 
fenhan that he might examine the medical part. He 
found it treated without the least understanding of the 
subject. Is it not very probable that other specialist 
savants would have judged the parts relating to 
the objects of their researches in the same way ? 
So that in wanting to do too much one satisfies no 
one, unless, I repeat, the author of the general 
history be himself a specialist in one branch of it, 
to which branch he would have done better to confine 
himself. 

The work of the nineteenth century then, should 
be the writing of monographs on every point of 
science, a hard, humble and laborious task, no doubt, 
requiring the most disinterested devotion, but a solid 
and lasting work withal and immensely lifted out of 
the common by the loftiness of the final aim. It 
would certainly be more sweet and flattering to 
human vanity to pluck at the outset the fruit which 
will only be ripe in a distant future. It wants a 
very deep-rooted scientific virtue to check one's self 
on this fatal slope and to refrain from rushing on 
when the whole_ of human nature clamours for the 
final solution. (The heroes of science are they who 
capable of the loftiest views have been able at the same 
time to resist all anticipated thought and to resign 
themselves to the role of humble monographers, 
when every instinct of their nature would have 
impelled them to scale the high summits. To many, 
nay to the majority, we are bound to say, this is but a 
small sacrifice, there is but little merit in abstaining 
from philosophic views to which they are not inclined 
by nature. The really deserving are they who while 
understanding in the loftiest sense the supreme aim 



220 The Future of Science. 

of science, while experiencing the most urgent philo- 
sophical and religious needs devote themselves for 
the sake of posterity to the laborious calling of mere 
navvies, and condemn themselves, like the plough 
horse to see only the furrow it turns. This in the 
style of the gospel is called; losing one's soul in 
order to save it. To make up one's mind to ignore so 
that posterity may know t i% the first and foremost con- 
dition of the scientific method. For many long 
years science will still stand in need of those patient 
researches that take, or might take, the title of 
" Memoranda for the use of . . ." With a view to 
the welfare of posterity lofty intellects will in that 
way be compelled to condemn themselves to the 
ergastulum in order to store up in learned pages 
materials which but a small number will be able 
to read. To all appearance these patient investiga- 
tors waste their time and their labour. There is no 
public for them. They will be read by three or four 
people, sometimes only by him who reviews their 
work in some scientific periodical (98), or by him 
who shall take up the same kind of work, that is, if 
the latter care at all to know what his predecessors 
have done. And still monographs are after all the 
things that live longest. A book of generalities is 
generally outstripped in about ten years, a monograph 
being a fact in science, a stone laid in the edifice 
is in a sense everlasting from its results. People 
may neglect the name of the author, the book itself 
may be forgotten, but the results to which it has 
contributed remain. It is a sufficient reward to 
a whole life, if it has provided a few elements 
to the final creed, whatever transformations these 
elements may undergo. Henceforth that will be the 
true immortality (99). 

One might cite a great number of researches which 
to posterity will be summed up in a few lines, 
which lines again will imply whole lives of patient 
application. The Greek Kingdoms of Bactriana and 
Pentapotamia have been for some years the object of 



The Future of Science. 221 

researches which would already make several volumes 
and are far from being terminated. Is it at all likely 
that these studies with all their details will find 
a lasting place in the science of the future ? 
Certainly not. And still they were necessary to 
show the character of the extent, of the importance 
and physiognomy of those advanced colonies ot 
Greece ; without these laborious researches we 
should have remained in the dark with regard to one 
of the most curious aspects of the history of Hellen- 
ism in the East. Those results, attained, the works 
that have been instrumental in attaining them may 
disappear without much inconvenience to any one, 
like the scaffolding when the building is finished. 
And even supposing that the details remain necessary 
for the more intelligent understanding of the general 
results, the means, the machinery, if I may be per- 
mitted to call it so, by which the Prinseps and the 
Lassens have deciphered that page of history will 
almost have lost its value or will at best be preserved 
like bas-reliefs on the pedestal of the obelisk which 
they were instrumental in raising. " The scholars 

of the nineteenth century have proved ■" the text 

will run. And that will be all. 

Science should be represented to our minds as a 
building of the ages which can only be raised by 
the accumulation of enormous masses. A whole life 
of assiduous labour will only be as an obscure and 
nameless stone in that gigantic fabric, nay it may be 
nothing more than an unnoticed stone hidden in the 
thickness of the walls. No matter, one has one's 
place in the temple, one has contributed to the 
strength of its heavy foundations (100). The authors 
of monographs cannot reasonably hope to see their 
work endure in their proper form ; the results they 
have put into circulation will undergo modifications, 
they will be digested and thoroughly assimilated. 
But through all metamorphoses, they will have the 
honour of having furnished essential elements to the 
life of humanity. The glory of the first explorers 



222 The Future of Science. 

consists in being outstripped and in giving their 
successors the means by which the latter can out- 
strip them. " But this glory is immense and should 
be the less contested by him who comes second, see- 
ing that he himself will have no other merit in the 
opinion of those who will busy themselves with the 
same subject than the merit of having preceded 
them (101)." 

The faculty of forgetting occupies a large place in 
the scientific education of the individual. A mass 
of special data more or less painfully acquired drop 
of themselves from the memory ; but for all that we 
should be careful not to assume that they have been 
lost. For the intellectual culture which was the 
result of this travail, the progress accomplished by 
the mind through these studies remains, and these 
only are worth anything. It is the same in the edu- 
cation of humanity. The particular elements dis- 
appear, but the accomplished progress remains. 
There are algebraical problems for which it is neces- 
sary to employ unknown auxiliaries and to take very 
wide circuits. Do we regret, when the problem has 
been solved, the elimination of all this baggage in 
order to make room for a simple and final expression ? 

Therefore, {he specialist-sava^, far from deserting 
the true arena of humanity, is the one who labours 
most efficaciously to the progress of the intellect, 
seeing that he alone can provide us with the materials 
for its constructions.7 But his researches, I repeat, 
cannot have an airrPin themselves, for they do not 
contribute to make the author more perfect, they 
are of no value until they are introduced into the 
grand current. We must admit that the specialist- 
savants themselves are mainly responsible for propa- 
gating strange misunderstandings on that point. 
Exclusively occupied with their own studies, they 
consider the rest useless and all those not engaged 
in the same researches are so many profane ones to 
them. In that way their speciality becomes a small 
world to them, in which they obstinately and super- 



The Future of Science. 223 

ciliously shut themselves up. And still, if the special 
object to which a man devotes his whole life had to 
be taken as possessing an absolute value, every one 
ought to apply himself to the same object that is, to 
the most excellent of all. Among the ancient litera- 
tures a man should exclusively study Greek litera- 
ture ; among those of the East, Sanskrit literature, 
and he who should devote his time and labour to 
a mediocre literature would only be a mere blunderer. 
Each of these studies has only its value in view of 
its place in the great whole, and of its connection 
with the science of the human intellect. The 
Oriental studies, for instance, are subdivided in$o 
three or four principal branches, to each of which 
a small number of savants devote themselves exclu- 
sively ; so that the researches relating to literatures 
which are not the object of their studies possess no 
interest to them. The result is that he who writes 
a special work on Chinese, Persian, or Thibetic 
literatures may hope to have about a dozen reader© 
in Europe. And even these, being engrossed, on 
their side, with their own special labours, have no 
time to trouble much about those of others and only 
glance at them superficially, so that in those studies, 
every one works for himself alone. A strange re- 
versal of things. Are we to infer from this that it 
would be desirable for every Orientalist to apply 
himself to all the languages of Asia ? Certainly not. 
But what would be desirable is that the savants who 
are most specialistic should have the true and inmost 
consciousness of their labours, and that the philo- 
sophical intellects should not disdain to apply to 
scholarship for the material of thought. For, I 
repeat, if the monographer alone reads his mono- 
graph, what is the use of writing it. It would be 
too odd if science had no other aim than to supply 
food for the curiosity of this or that man. Besides, 
the various sciences have problems in common with, 
and analogous to, one another as far as form goes 
which are often more easy of solution by means of 



224 The Future of Science. 



one science than by that of another. I am con- 
vinced, for instance, that for the undoubtedly philo- 
sophical problem of the classification and the reality 
of the species the naturalists would derive great light 
from the study of the method of the linguists and 
of the natural characters that help them to consti- 
tute the families and groups according to the imper- 
ceptible degradation of the grammatical processes. 
Let the savants look to it ; there is a savour of vanity 
in that mania of condemning any and every study 
not made at first hand as being of doubtful alloy. 
Such a system, carried to extremes would lead to 
the shutting up of every one within himself and to 
the destruction of all intellectual and scientific com- 
merce. What would be the use of monographs if for 
every subsequent work we were obliged to recom- 
mence. This defect proceeds from still another 
vanity of the savants, which in its turn is closely 
allied to the spirit of superficiality of which they 
have so righteous a horror, namely, the vanity of 
writing books not for the sake of being xjad, but for 
the purpose of proving their learning. 

It cannot be repeated too often ; the true scien- 
tific work is the work at first hand. As a rule results 
only preserve their absolute purity in the writings 
of him who first discovered them. It is difficult to 
point out how scientific matters, in passing from 
hand to hand, and deviating from their primary 
source become altered and warped, and this without 
the least ill will of those who borrow them. This or 
that fact is looked at in a light somewhat different 
from that in which it was first observed ; a reflection 
is added which the author of the original work would 
not have made, but which he who adds it thinks 
himself justified in making. A general observation 
is put forth which the primary investigator would 
not have formulated for himself in the same manner. 
A writer at third hand will improve in that way on 
his predecessor, and thus, unless it reverts constantly 
to its sources historical science is always inexact and 
open to suspicion. 



The Future of Science. 225 

The knowledge possessed by the Middle Ages of 
classical antiquity affords the most striking instance 
of those imperceptible modifications of primary facts 
that lead to the strangest errors or to the most absurd 
way of representing facts. The Middle Ages knew 
a great many things appertaining to Greek antiquity, 
but it knew nothing, absolutely nothing at first hand 
(102), hence the most incredible errors. The me- 
diaeval writers think that they can combine in their 
own way the scattered and incomplete notions they 
possess and in that way simply multiply inexact- 
ness which at the end of three or four centuries 
becomes such that when in the fourteenth century, 
the true Greek antiquity came to be directly known, 
it seemed to be the revelation of another world. The 
Latin encyclopaedists, Martianus Capella, Boethius, 
Isidore of Seville only compile school books and 
string the traditional data together. Bede and 
Alcuin know even less of antiquity than Martianus 
Capella and Isidore. Yincent of Beauvais has left 
the truth still further behind him. At last in the 
fourteenth century (outside Italy), inexactness reaches 
its furthest limits, the Greek civilization is no better 
known than India would be, if, to reconstruct the 
Indian world we only had the notions left to us by 
the writers of classical antiquity. 

Several parts of literary history which as yet, have 
not been sufficiently endued with life by the direct 
study of sources afford instances of inexactness with 
which those committed in the Middle Ages will bear 
comparison. Brucker is no doubt a scrupulous 
investigator, but still the books he has devoted to 
the philosophy of the Indians, of the Chinese or even 
of the Arabs must be placed on the same rank as 
the chapter dealing with ancient history in the 
"Speculum Historiale" of Vincent of Beauvais. 
What then shall we say of those who came after him 
and who have only copied or arbitrarily extracted 
from him without the least feeling as to what is 
essential and what accessory? When people are 

Q 



226 The Future of Science. 

certain that the materials they possess are the only 
ones extant they may allow themselves to indulge 
in that kind of ingenious inlaid work in which are 
grouped all the spangles at their disposal, on the 
condition, however, of making reservations and 
acknowledging their inability to determine the 
mutual relations of parts, the proportions of the 
whole. But when there are original sources only 
waiting to be explored, there is something grotesque 
in this dovetailing of scattered scraps, inexact, dis- 
connected which are made into a system according 
to fancy and without the least notion of the manner 
in which the original producers proceeded. Hence 
the inevitable defect of all the histories of literature 
and philosophy composed outside the original sources 
as has been the case so long with regard to the 
Middle Ages, as is the case still with regard to the 
East. Those who compose those histories only copy 
the same errors and aggravate them by adding their 
own conjectures to them. Try to read in Tennemann, 
in Tiedemann, in Eitter the chapters treating of 
Arabian philosophy. You will find nothing more 
than you find in Brucker, that is, nothing more than 
approximatives. We must definitely banish from 
science those works at third and fourth hand, in 
which the same data are simply copied without an 
attempt at either completing or verifying them. 
Whosoever, in the actual condition of science, should 
undertake a complete history either of Arabian philo- 
sophy or medicine would literally waste his time and 
his labour for he would only repeat what is already 
known. Such a work cannot possibly be accom- 
plished until eight or ten of the most laborious 
students gifted with the most special knowledge 
have devoted their whole lives to the publication, 
translation and analysis of all the Arabian authors 
of which we possess the text or the rabbinical 
versions. Until then all the general works in that 
direction will be utterly baseless. And it is very 
probable that even then nothing very marvellous 



Hie Future of Science. 227 

will result from all this, because I have no great 
faith in the Arabian philosophy, but if the result 
were a mere atom towards the history of the human 
intellect a thousand well spent lives would not be 
too much to pay for it. In the actual condition of 
science we may feel a pang of regret that dis- 
tinguished intellects should devote their time and 
labour to objects in appearance so undeserving of 
their concern. But if science were as it should be, 
namely, cultivated by great masses of individuals 
and practically worked in large scientific workshops, 
the least interesting points would like the others be 
cleared up. In the actual condition one may aver 
that there are useless researches in the sense that 
they take up time that would be better spent on 
more serious subjects. But in the normal state in 
which so much power, now spent upon perfectly 
futile objects, would be devoted to serious things 
there would be no ground for despising any kind of 
work. For the perfect science of the whole will be 
impossible of attainment save by the patient and 
analytical exploration of the parts. Certain philo- 
logists have devoted long dissertations to the particles 
of the Greek language, others of the Henaissance 
have written works on the conjunction quanquam; 
a grammarian of Alexandria has written a book on 
the difference between XPV an ^ Set. No doubt they 
might have set themselves more important problems ; 
still it would be rash to assert that such works 
are useless. For they do something for the know- 
ledge of classical languages and classical languages 
do something for the philosophy of the human intel- 
lect. In the same way the knowledge of Sanskrit 
will not be perfectly grasped until plodding philo- 
logists shall have composed monographs about every 
part and every process of it. There exists a some- 
what bulky volume of Bynseus ; " De Calecis Hebrce- 
orum." It is a pity, no doubt that the shoes of the 
Hebrews should have found a monographer before 
the Vedas found a publisher. Nevertheless, I am 



228 TJie Future of Science. 

convinced that this book which I mean to read one 
of these days contains some valuable information 
and should make a useful appendix to the works 
of Braun, Schroeder and Hartmann on the dress of 
the Hebrew high priest and women. Pliny's saying 
is literally true. " There is no book, however bad, 
from which you may not learn something." It is 
rash to exclude no matter what, to condemn before- 
hand no matter what research as fruitless. What 
priceless results have sprung from studies apparently 
frivolous ? Is it not the progress of grammar which 
has contributed to the more perfect interpretation 
of texts and through that to the more intelligent 
understanding of the ancient world ? The most 
important questions of Biblical exegesis in particular 
to which the philosopher cannot remain indifferent 
depend as a rule on the most humble and mosfc 
minute grammatical discussions (103). Nowhere 
has the process of making grammar and lexicography 
more perfect wrought a more radical reform. There 
are numerous other cases in which the most vital 
questions with regard to the human intellect depend 
on the most minute philological details. Far, there- 
fore, from being the mere work of minds but little 
given to philosophy special labours are the most 
important to true science and betoken the best minds. 
Who is there that could write more scholarly gene- 
ralities on Indian literature than M. Eugene Burnouf ? 
Well, he only does so reluctantly and casually, be- 
cause he justly considers as the more essential and 
most urgent work the publication of texts, the philo- 
logical discussion of the same. In his preface to 
the " Bhagavata-Purana," M.Eugene Burnouf while 
apologizing to the savants for having given some 
general views, protests that he has only done so for 
the French reader and that he attaches but a secondary 
importance to a work which will have to be done 
later on, and which as it could be done to-day, would 
necessarily be outstripped and rendered useless by 
its follower. Are we to take this as the humility of 



TJie Future of Science. 229 

the mind, or as the love for humble things for their 
own sake ? No, it is simply the outcome of a healthy 
method and an upright judgment. In the actual 
condition of Sanskrit literature the publication and 
translation of texts is of more value than any possible 
number of dissertations whether on the history of 
India or on the genuineness and completeness of the 
works. Superficial minds may be inclined to think 
that it would be more meritorious and glorious on 
the part of a lofty intellect to write for instance 
a literary history of India than to devote itself to 
the unthankful task of editing and translating texts. 
This is a mistake. There is, as yet, no occasion to 
write dissertations on a literature all the elements 
of which are not to hand. Petrarch, Boccaccio, 
Poggio might as well have endeavoured to write the 
theory of Greek literature. Petrarch and Boccaccio 
by making Homer known ; Ambrogio Traversari by 
translating Diogenes Laertius, Poggio by discovering 
Quintilian and translating Xenophon ; Aurispa by 
bringing to the West the manuscripts of Plotinus, 
of Proclus, of Diodorus Siculus ; Lorenzo Valla 
by translating Herodotus and Thucydides have 
rendered greater services to the classical literatures 
than if they had prematurely endeavoured to grapple 
with the higher questions of history and criticism. 
These early humanists, no doubt, fell fatally into 
literary superstitions and errors of criticism, which 
we, with our minds sharpened by the comparisons 
of other literatures, are able to avoid. We at the 
very outset are capable of performing on those almost 
unknown literatures tricks of skill which were only 
possible with regard to Greek and Latin literatures 
after the lapse of two or three centuries. The first 
students of Manu or the " Mahabharata " were enabled 
to discover things which it took three or four hundred 
years to discover in Homer or Moses. Nevertheless 
we are bound to maintain " that the period of disser- 
tations and memoirs on India has not yet arrived, 
or rather that is already past and that the labours 



230 1 Tie Future of Science. 



of a Colebrooke, of a Wilson, of a Schlegel and a 
Lassen have for a long while barred the career so 
brilliantly opened by the talent of Sir William Jones 
(104)." In fact, to write the history of India will 
only become possible after two centuries of labour 
such as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries de- 
voted to the classical literatures. Works of the latter 
order are the only ones which, in the actual condi- 
tion of science, have a real and lasting value. Still, 
as it is true enough that an incomplete system, pro- 
vided we do not cling to it in too narrow a spirit, 
is better than no system at all, one could wish that 
some one without professing to write a definitely 
scientific work, should attempt a kind of manual or 
introduction to that literature, based upon the actual 
state of Sanskrit studies. I confess that the greatest 
obstacle I have met with in engaging upon Indian 
studies is the utter absence of a summary work on 
Sanskrit literature, its development, its principal 
periods, the various ages of the language, the place 
and rank occupied by the various works, in short, 
something analogous to what Gesenius has done for 
the language and literature of the Jews. Such a 
work truly would be obsolete after the lapse of ten 
years ; but it would have had its use and contributed 
to facilitate the direct study of the sources. It 
would assuredly be a pity for an eminent man to 
spend upon it moments that might be better em- 
ployed in making that very work useless, and still 
who could do it if not the man who has a thorough 
survey of the ground already travelled over ? 

It is no doubt a drawback that those who devote 
their lives to works of special learning should not be 
imbued with the grand spirit that alone can impart 
life to these labours, but which very often does more 
harm to the moral perfection of the authors than to 
the work itself. Perfection would mean grappling 
closely with the particle while keeping at the same 
time to the grand centre from a force of constant 
habit that should penetrate the whole of the scientific 



The Future of Science. 231 



life. For we may truly ask where the difference lies 
between certain learned researches, certain collec- 
tions made by intellects too feeble to set them- 
selves an aim and the work of the mere collector 
who pins on his cardboard sheets butterflies of any 
and every colour? Oh! when life is as short as it 
is and when so many serious matters crop up into 
it, would it not be better to listen to the numberless 
promptings of the heart and the imagination and to 
taste the delicious joys of the religious sentiment 
than to fritter away a life that is irretrievable, and 
which when lost, is lost for ever and ever ? 

JThe great obstacle which checks the progress of 
philological studies seems to me to lie in that dis- 
persion of work, in that self-isolation among special 
studies, which render the labours of the philologist 
only available to himself and to a small number of 
friends who are engaged upon the same subject] with 
him. Each savant developing in that way his part 
without the least concern for the other branches of 
science becomes narrow, egotistical and lost to the 
lofty sense of his mission. A whole life would 
scarcely suffice to exhaust the researches to be under- 
taken on this or that special point of a science which 
itself is but the infinitesimal part of a much more 
extensive science. The same researches are con- 
stantly begun over and over again, monographs 
increase and accumulate to a degree such that their 
very number annuls and renders them useless. It 
seems to me that the time will come when philo- 
logical students will collect and examine all those scat- 
tered labours, and when the results are finally attained 
the henceforth useless monographs will only be pre- 
served as so many mementos. When the edifice has 
been raised there is no harm in taking away the 
scaffolding that was necessary to its construction. 
That is how physical sciences proceed. The works 
approved of by competent authorities are done once 
for all and henceforth adopted in full confidence 
without the self-imposed attempt of reverting to the 



232 The Future of Science. 

researches of the first experimentalists except in rare 
cases and at long intervals. It is thus that whole 
years of assiduous studies have been often summarized 
in a few lines or in a few figures and that the vast 
whole of the science of nature has been composed 
piece by piece and with admirable joint responsibility 
on the part of all the labourers. The much more 
delicate nature of the philological sciences would no 
doubt not admit of the rigorous application of a 
similar method. Still, I am under the impression 
that we shall not get out of this maze of individual 
and isolated work save by a great scientific organiza- 
tion, in which everything shall be done without stint 
as without waste of power and in so final a manner 
as to render the results attained capable of accepta- 
tion in full confidence. One cannot help thinking 
now and again that the mass of scientific work is 
crushed by its own weight and that it would be for the 
better if publicity were more restricted. But the 
real defect is the want of organization and control. 
In an efficiently ordered scientific state it would 
be desirable that the number of workers were still 
much more considerable. For then the work would 
not go a-burrowing and would not choke itself, like a 
fire of which the fuel is too closely piled up. It is 
sad to think that three-fourths of the minute things 
which are still being sought for are already found, 
while other mines in which treasures are lying await- 
ing discovery remain without hands in consequence 
of the inefficient direction of the work. Science in 
our days is not unlike a magnificent library turned 
upside down. It contains everything, but so utterly 
pell-mell, so thoroughly unclassified that it might 
just as well not be there. 

A moment's reflection will convince us of the abso- 
lute necessity of supposing the future to have a 
grand scientific reform in store for us (105). In fact, 
the material claiming the attention of the scholar 
keeps on increasing at so rapid a rate, either by reason 
of fresh discoveries or by the multiplying of centuries 



The Future of Science. 233 



as to exceed in the long run the capacities of investi- 
gators. A hundred years hence France will count 
three or four literatures virtually piled atop of one 
another. In five hundred years there will be two 
ancient histories. And, if the elucidation of the first 
which the times and the utter absence of the print- 
ing press invested with such great simplicity to us, 
sufficed to occupy so many laborious lives, what will 
it be with ours which will have to be extracted from 
such an enormous mass of documents ? The same 
argument holds good with regard to our libraries. 
If the National Library continues to accumulate all 
the new productions, it will become absolutely im- 
practicable in another hundred years and its very 
wealth will make it useless (106). Hence, there is 
a progressive march which cannot continue indefi- 
nitely without producing a revolution in science. It 
would be foolish to inquire how that revolution will 
be brought about. Will there be an immense sim- 
plification like that wrought by the barbarians ? We 
cannot risk the slightest reasonable hypothesis on 
the subject. 

Without being a partisan of literary and scientific 
cominimism, I believe, nevertheless that the dispersion 
of forces should be urgently opposed, and the concen- 
tration of work as urgently called for. Germany has 
in that respect some really useful customs. It is by 
no means rare to find in the literary journals or in 
the reports of philological conferences the notice of a 
savant informing his iellow- savants that he has under- 
taken a special work on a certain subject and conse- 
quently asking them to send him any and everything 
bearing upon the subject which may have come in 
their way in the course of their own particular studies. 
Without attempting to lay down hard and fast rules 
I have an idea that under a seriously organized 
system one might throw open in that way public 
problems to which every one should be welcome to 
contribute his contingent of facts. The Acade'mies, 
especially the academies devoted to works that have 



234 Tlie Future of Science. 



much in common, such as for instance the Academie 
des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres supply the want I 
am pointing out, but in order to supply it in a 
thoroughly efficacious manner, they would have to 
undergo radical transformations. 



The Future of Science. 235 



CHAPTEK XIV. 

The plan of my work does not admit of my sug- 
gesting any ideas of practical application. My 
complete ignorance of practical life would, moreover, 
make me utterly unfit to do so. Organization, 
demanding experience and the careful balancing of 
principles by existing facts could not possibly be the 
work of a young man. I shall, therefore, only lay 
down principles. 

It cannot be gainsaid that it is the duty of the 
State to patronize science as it patronizes art. The 
State, in fact, represents society and should replace 
individual enterprise with regard to works where 
isolated effort would be insufficient. The aim of 
society is the realization on a vast and complete 
scale of all the facets of human life. As it happens 
some of these facets can only be realized by collective 
wealth. Individuals cannot build unto themselves 
observatories ; they cannot create libraries, they 
cannot found large scientific institutions. The State, 
therefore, owes to science observatories, libraries, 
scientific institutions. Individuals cannot by them- 
selves undertake and publish certain works. The 
State owes them subsidies. Certain branches of 
science (and the most important) cannot provide 
those that cultivate them with the necessaries of life. 
The State is bound to afford in some shape or other 
to deserving workers the necessary means to pursue 
peaceably their labours and to keep them from 
harassing want. I say that this is a duty of the State, 



236 The Future of Science. 

and I say so unreservedly (107). I do not look upon 
the State as a simple institution of police and for 
preserving order. The State is society itself, that is, 
man in his normal condition. It is consequently, 
subject to the same duties as the individual, as 
regards religious things. It must not merely let 
things take their course, it is bound to provide man 
with the conditions of his striving after perfection. 
It is a plastic and really guiding power. For society 
is not merely the atomic union of individuals, wrought 
by the repetition of the unit ; it is the constituted 
unit, it is primeval. 

I am aware that England, like France of old in 
some respects provides for nearly everything by 
private foundations, and I can understand that in a 
country where private foundations are so respected 
one may dispense with a minster of Public Education. 
The State, I repeat, should only step in where the 
individual cannot or does not suffice, hence its part 
is less important in a country where private indi- 
viduals can do and do a great deal. Besides, England 
only realizes these grand things by association, that 
is, by small societies within the large one, and 
personally I consider the French organization, which 
sprang from our Revolution much more in accordance 
with the modern spirit. It is above all in the shape 
of religion that the watchfulness of the State over 
the supra-sensitive interests of humanity has hitherto 
been exercised. But as soon as the religious 
tendency of man shall manifest itself in the purely 
scientific and rational form all that the State formerly 
granted to the budget of Public Worship will by right 
revert to science, the sole definite religion. There 
will be no budget of Public Worship, there will be a 
budget of science, a budget of arts. The State must 
provide for science as it does for religion, seeing that 
science like religion is an essential part of human 
nature. Science has even a higher claim on the 
State, because religion though everlasting in its psy- 
chological basis, is more or less transitory in its 



The Future of Science. 237 

form ; unlike science it is not wholly an essential 
part of human nature. 

Seeing that science can only exist under the con- 
dition of the most perfect freedom, the patronage 
which the State owes it, does not confer upon the 
State the least right to control or to regulate it, any 
more than the subsidy granted to public worship 
gives it the right to frame articles of faith. In one 
sense the State can exercise even less influence on 
science than on religions ; because it can at least 
impose certain regulations of police on the latter ; 
while it can impose nothing, absolutely nothing on 
science. Science, in fact, proceeding through the 
intrinsic and objective consideration of things is not 
itself free to yield obedience to him who would 
command it ; if it were free in its opinions, one 
might perhaps ask it for this or that opinion. But 
it is not free ; there is nothing more fatally stubborn 
than reason and consequently, science. To attempt 
to direct it, to ask it to attain this or that result is 
merely a flagrant contradiction ; it is acting upon the 
supposition that it is pliable to every sensation, upon 
the supposition that it is not science. 

Certain religions orders which applied to study that 
tranquillity of mind — one of the most delightful fruits 
of monastic life — realized of old those grand scientific 
workshops the disappearance of which is so deeply 
to be regretted. No doubt it would have been much 
better had those workers been independent (108). 
They would not have brought to their labours so 
much patience and abnegation, but they certainly 
would have brought a keener spirit of criticism. Be 
this as it may, it cannot be denied that the abroga- 
tion of the religious orders which devoted themselves 
to study and of the "parliaments" which afforded 
scholars so much studious leisure have struck a fatal 
blow to learned researches. This gap will not be 
filled up until the State shall have instituted, in some 
form or other, lay chapters, lay benefices, where the 
great labours of learning will be resumed by profane 



238 The Future of Science. 

and critical Benedictines. By the side of the 
learned labour of the architect there is in science the 
drudgery of the hodman which requires unnoticed 
patience and united labour. Dom Mabillon, Dom 
Buinard, Dom Rivet, Montfaucon could not have 
accomplished their gigantic tasks if they had not 
had at command a whole community of laborious 
workers who " fined down " the work to which they 
afterwards put the finishing touch. Science will 
make no rapid conquests until lay Benedictines 
will harness themselves once more to the yoke of 
learned research and devote lives of labour to 
the elucidation of the past. Glory will not be the 
reward of those humble workers ; but life has many 
gentle and tranquil natures, but little exercised by 
passions and desires, not harassed by philosophical 
needs (take care not to infer from this that they are 
cold and withered ; on the contrary, they often 
possess intense faculties of concentration and are 
exceedingly sensitive) who would be content with 
this peaceful life and who, amidst modest comforts 
and happy family surroundings, would exactly find 
the atmosphere suited to such modest work. Truth 
to tell, the most natural form of patronizing science 
in that way is the form of sinecures. Sinecures are 
indispensable in the scientific world ; they are the 
most dignified and the fittest way of pensioning the 
savant ; besides affording the advantage of grouping 
around scientific institutions illustrious names and 
eminent talents. Only barbarians and people " who 
see no farther than their nose " will allow themselves 
to be taken in by superficial objections like those 
raised at the first blush by the employment of 
extensive scientific staffs. It is very evident that 
the work of this or that library which numbers ten 
or twelve assistants would be done just as well by 
two or three people (and in fact among the number 
there are only two or three who do anything worth 
mentioning). Certain people would conclude from 
this that all the others ought to be dismissed. No 



The Future of Science. 239 

doubt, if the sole aim were to provide for the material 
wants of the work. An odd thing. Science the one 
truly liberal thing in this world is only largely 
patronized in Eussia. 

It is a pity, certainly that we should have to 
descend to such considerations. But in the actual 
condition of humanity money is an intellectual force 
and in virtue of that deserves some consideration. 
A million is as good as one or two men of genius, in 
the sense that with a million well spent one may do 
as much for intellectual progress as one or two first- 
rate men could do, if reduced to intellectual force 
only. With a million I will undertake to drive 
modern ideas deeper into the mind of the masses 
than it could be done by a whole generation of poor 
thinkers, commanding no influence. With a million 
I could translate the Talmud, publish the Yedas, the 
Nyaya with its commentaries and bring out a number 
of works which would contribute more to the progress 
of science than a whole century of metaphysical 
thought. How frantic it drives one to think that 
with the sums silly opulence scatters about to satisfy 
mere whims, one might move heaven and earth. It 
is idle to expect the savant to emancipate himself 
from the conditions of ordinary life and to do without 
the everyday food. It is still more idle to hope 
that the wealthy who are exempt from such cares, 
will ever suffice for the needs of science. The grand 
scientific instincts nearly always find their develop- 
ment among well educated but poor young men. The 
rich always import into science a tone of superficial 
amateurishness of very doubtful alloy (109). Eeligion 
has never been blamed for having ministers subject to 
material wants like other men and claiming State aid. 
As for those who look upon science as a mere money- 
making machine, we will have nothing to say to them, 
they are manufacturers like a good many other 
manufacturers, they are not savants. Whosoever 
has been able to dwell for a single moment on the 
hope of becoming rich, whosoever has looked upon 



240 The Future of Science. 



the outward needs in any other light than a heavy 
and fatal chain to which unfortunately he must 
submit, does not deserve the name of savant. Large 
scientific stipends and plurality of appointments 
would in that respect have the same serious draw- 
backs that wealth had formerly on the clergy ; they 
would attract mercenary characters who look upon 
science as a means as good as any other to make 
their fortune, disgraceful simoniacs who import into 
sacred things their grovelling habits and their worldly 
views. Students should feel sure beforehand that in 
embracing the scientific career they condemned 
themselves to lifelong poverty, though they should 
not want for the strictly necessary ; in that way 
there would be none but noble natures driven by 
a powerful and irresistible instinct who would devote 
themselves to it, and the scum of intriguers and 
adventurers would carry their pretensions elsewhere. 
The first condition has been already fulfilled ? 
Why is it not the same with regard to the second ? 



TJie Future of Science. 241 



CHAPTEE XV. 

In order to complete my idea and to make clearly 
understood what I mean by a scientific philosophy 
I am bound to give some instances here, which, 
it seems to me, will make it evident that special 
studies can lead to results as important to the 
thorough knowledge of things as metaphysical and 
psychological speculation. I will borrow them by 
preference from historical or philological sciences, 
the only ones with which I am familiar and with 
which, besides, this essay specially deals. It is not 
because the natural sciences do not afford data quite 
as philosophical. I am not afraid of exaggerating 
when I say that our most settled ideas on the system 
of things are rooted more or less deeply in the phy- 
sical sciences and that the most important differences 
that distinguish modern from antique thought are 
due to the revolution those studies have wrought in 
our manner of viewing the world. Our idea of the 
laws of nature which has upset for ever and aye 
the old conception of the anthromorphic world is the 
grand result of physical sciences, not of this or that 
experiment but of a very general mode of induction, 
the result of the general physiognomy of phenomena. 
It cannot be gainsaid that astronomy in revealing to 
man the structure of the universe, the rank and 
position of the earth, the order it occupies in the 
system of the world has done more for true science 
than all the conceivable speculations based upon the 
exclusive consideration of human nature (110). This 



242 The Future of Science. 

consideration, in fact, would lead either to the 
ancient finalism, which made man the centre of the 
universe or to pure Hegelism which admits no other 
manifestation of the divine conscience than humanity. 
But the study of the world's system and of the place 
man occupies in it, without upsetting either of these 
two conceptions forbids us to take them in a too 
absolute or exclusive manner. The idea of the infi- 
nite is one of the most fundamental in human nature, 
— if it be not the whole of human nature itself; and 
still man would not have succeeded in understanding 
in its reality the infinitude of things, if the experi- 
mental study of things had not brought him to it. 
Of course it is not the telescope that has revealed 
the infinite to him, but it is the telescope that has 
taken him to the extreme limits beyond which there 
is still an infinitude of worlds. Has not geology in- 
troduced as essential an element into philosophy by 
teaching man the history of our globe, the period at 
which humanity first appeared, the conditions of that 
appearance and the creations which preceded him ? 
Physics and chemistry have done more for the inmost 
constitution of the body than all the speculations of 
the ancient and modern philosophers on the abstract 
quality of matter, its essence, its divisible properties. 
Physiology and comparative anatomy, zoology, botany 
are in my opinion, the sciences that teach the greatest 
number of things on the essence of life, and it is 
from them that I have drawn the greatest number of 
elements for my manner of regarding the individuality 
and the mode of consciousness resulting from the 
organism. Mathematics themselves, though afford- 
ing no lesson on reality are precious in moulding 
thought, and offer us, in the way of pure reason in 
action, the model of the most perfect logic. But I 
wish .to insist no longer on things of which I have 
no special knowledge and come back to my funda- 
mental idea of a critical philosophy . 

To my idea the highest degree of intellectual culture 
is to unchi'stand humanity. The physical student 



Tlie Future of Science. 243 



understands nature, no doubt not in all its pheno- 
mena, but at any rate in its general laws, in its true 
physiognomy. The physical student is the critic of 
nature, the philosopher is the critic of humanity. 
Where the ordinary observer only sees whim and 
miracle, the physicist and the philosopher see laws 
and the manifestation of reason. Aud this true 
intuition with regard to humanity, which is after all 
only criticism, the historical and philological sciences 
alone are able to give it. The first step in the science 
of humanity is to distinguish two phases in human 
thought ; the primeval age, an age of spontaneity in 
which the faculties of their creative fruitfulness, 
unconscious of themselves, as it were and by their 
inmost tension attained an object at which they did 
not aim; and the age of reflection in which man 
becomes conscious and master of himself, an age of 
combination and painful process, of antithetical and 
much-debated knowledge. One of the services ren- 
dered to philosophy by M. Cousin has been to intro- 
duce among us this distinction and to demonstrate it 
with his admirable clearness of mind. But it will be 
the mission of science to "demonstrate it finally and 
to apply it to the solution of the highest problems. 
Primitive history, the epics and poetry of the spon- 
taneous ages, their religions, their languages will 
have no meaning until this grand distinction shall 
have become current coin. The enormous errors of 
criticism generally to be found in the essays on the 
works of the primitive epochs arise from the ignor- 
ance of this principle and from the habit of judging 
all the epochs of the human intellect by the same 
standard. Let us take for instance, the origin of 
language. Why do people advance such absurd 
arguments on that important philosophical question ? 
Because they apply to the primitive epochs views 
that have a meaning only in our age of reflection. 
People say; " Seeing that the greatest philosophers 
are powerless to analyze language how could the first 
human beings have created it ? " The objection 



244 The Future of Science. 

holds good only with regard to deliberate invention. 
Spontaneous action has no need to be preceded by 
the analytical view. The mechanism of the intellect 
is much more difficult still to analyze, and still while 
knowing nothing of such analysis the simplest man 
sets in motion all its springs. The fact is that the 
words easy and difficult have no meaning whatsoever 
when applied to spontaneous action. The child that 
learns its language, humanity that creates science 
experience no more difficulty than the plant that 
germinates, than the organized body that arrives at 
its complete development. It is the hidden God, 
the universal force acting everywhere, producing 
either during sleep or in the absence of the individual 
soul, those marvellous effects, which are as much 
above human skill, as the infinite power is beyond 
limited strength. 

It is because this creative force of spontaneous 
reason has not been understood that the strangest 
hypotheses on the origin of the human intellect have 
been allowed to gain ground. When the Catholic 
Condillac, M. de Bonald, conceives primeval man 
after the model of a powerless statue, devoid of origi- 
nality or initiation on which God "enamels" or 
" lays on " if I may be permitted the expression both 
language, moral feeling and thought, he only con- 
tinues the reasoning of the eighteenth century and 
denies the innate originality of the intellect ; (irre- 
spective of the absurdity of making a stump or stock 
utterly deprived of intelligence, speak and understand 
by simply speaking to it, and as if such a revelation 
did not imply the inherent faculty to understand ; as 
if the receptive faculty were not correlative with the 
productive one). It is as untrue to say that man 
deliberately and with forethought created language, 
religion, morality as it is to say that those divine 
attributes of his nature have been revealed to him. 
All this is the work of spontaneous reason and of 
that hidden and inward activity which while conceal- 
ing from us the motor power only shows us the 



The Future of Science. 245 

effects. When we get as far down as this, it 
matters little whether we attribute the primary cause 
to God or to man, the spontaneous being both 
divine and human at the same time. There lies 
the point of conciliation between apparently con- 
tradictory opinions, but which are in fact only partial 
in their expression, according to their connection 
with one aspect of the phenomenon rather than with 
the other. 

The false reasoning on the history of religions and 
their origins springs from the same cause. The great 
religious apparitions present a mass of inexplicable 
facts to him who fails to look for the cause beyond 
ordinary experience. The formation of the legend 
of Jesus and all the primitive facts of Christianity 
would be incapable of being explained in surround- 
ings like ours. Let those who make themselves 
a narrow and paltry idea of the laws of the human 
intellect, who understand nothing beyond the com- 
monplace of a drawing-roorn or the restricted limits 
of ordinary common sense ; let those who have not 
grasped the proud originality of the spontaneous 
creations of human nature, let all those beware of 
grappling with such a problem or let them content 
themselves with timidly casting the solution of the 
supernatural upon it. In order to understand those 
extraordinary apparitions we must be hardened 
against miracles ; we must lift ourselves above our 
age of reflection and slow combination to be able to 
contemplate the human faculties in their creative 
originality ; when spurning our painful processes, they 
evolved from their plenitude the sublime and the 
divine. Then was the age of psychological miracles. 
To have recourse to the supposition of the super- 
natural in order to explain those marvellous effects 
is simply to insult human nature ; it is to admit one's 
ignorance of the hidden forces of the soul ; it is to 
imitate the commonplace man who looks upon extra- 
ordinary effects of which science explains the mystery 
as so many miracles. In every order of things, the 



2 16 Ttie Future of Science. 

miracle is only apparent, the miracle means that 
which has not been explained. The further we pene- 
trate into the higher psychology of primordial 
humanity, the deeper we pierce the origins of the 
human intellect the more miracles we are likely to 
find, miracles the more admirable in that they do not 
require for their production a " God-machine," who 
is always meddling with the course of thing ;, the 
more shall we become aware that they are the regular 
development of immutable laws like reason itself and 
the attainment of the perfect. The spontaneous 
man looks upon nature and history with the eyes of 
childhood ; the child casts upon everything the halo 
of the marvellous which he finds in his own soul. 
Kis curiosity, the lively interest he shows in every 
new combination spring from his faith in the marvel- 
lous. Biases with experiments we do not expect 
anything very wonderful ; but the child does not 
know what will come next. Knowing the reality 
less, he believes more in the possible. That delight- 
ful intoxication of life which is contained within 
himself makes his head spin ; he only sees the world 
through a delicately tinted mist ; casting a joyous 
and inquisitive look at all things, he smiles at every- 
thing, everything smiles on him. Hence spring his 
joys but also his terrors ; he makes unto himself a 
fantastic world that delights or frightens him ; he 
has not the faculty of distinguishing, which in the 
age of reflection so clearly divides the ego and the 
non-ego ; and makes us such coldblooded observers of 
the reality. He makes himself part and parcel of all 
his stories ; the simple and objective relation of the 
fact is impossible with him ; he does not know how 
to isolate himself from the judgment he has delivered 
upon it, from the personal impression of it that has 
remained with him. He does not relate things, he 
relates the fancies he has conceived in connection with 
things, or leather he relates himself. The child in his 
turn creates for himself all the myths that humanity 
created for itself; every fable that strikes his imagin- 



Tlie Future of Science. 247 

ation is accepted by him ; he himself improvises 
strange ones, and then affirms their truth to himself 
(111). Such is the process of the human intellect 
at the mythical epochs. The dream is taken for the 
reality and affirmed as such. Without the least 
mendacious premeditation, the fable is born of itself; 
accepted the moment it is born, it goes on gathering 
like the snowball ; there is no criticism to stop it. 
And it is not only at the origin of the human intel- 
lect that the soul allows herself to be tricked by this 
delightful deception ; the love of the marvellous 
goes on bearing ample fruit until the final advent of 
the scientific age, but less spontaneously and accom- 
panied by the assimilation of many more historical 
elements. 

Here, then, we have a principle capable of be- 
coming the basis of a complete philosophy of the 
human intellect, and around which are grouped the 
most important results of modern criticism. Chro- 
nology counts for very little in the history of man- 
kind. A combination of causes may once more 
obscure thought and revive the instincts of the 
primeval days. That is what did occur on the eve of 
modern times, and subsequent to the grand civiliza- 
tion of antiquity, when the Middle Ages recalled the 
Homeric ones, and that of the childhood of humanity. 
The theory of the primitive state of the human 
intellect, so indispensable to the knowledge of the 
human intellect itself, is our great discovery and has 
introduced thoroughly new data into philosophical 
science. The old Cartesian school took man in an 
abstract, general, uniform manner. It constructed 
the history of the individual as some Germans still 
construct the history of humanity, a 'priori, and 
without troubling itself about gradations which 
facts alone can reveal. And when I say history, I 
only do so for form's sake, for there was no history 
for that creature without any connection with its 
kind, who like the angels, saw everything in God. 
And when he had asked himself whether his facility 



248 Tlie Future of Science, 

to think is constant, whether his senses deceived him, 
whether matter exists, whether the animals have a 
soul, everything was said and done. And what in 
the name of all that is sensible could they know of 
the living, breathing man, those long-robed and stern 
personages of the parliaments, of Port- Royal, of the 
Oratoire, the personages that cut man into two parts, 
the body, the soul, without any space or passage 
between them, and by this mere arrangement pro- 
hibited themselves from studying life in its perfect 
simplicity (112) ? There are strange things told of 
the want of sensibility and sternness of Malebranche, 
and this could not be otherwise. It is not in the 
abstract world of pure reason that people beget a 
sympathy with life, all that touches and moves us 
belongs always more or less to the body. As for us, 
we have shifted the field of the science of man. It 
is his life we want to know, and life means both 
the body and the soul, not placed facing one another 
like clocks that tick in time, not soldered together 
like two different metals, but united into one two- 
fronted phenomenon which cannot be divided, with- 
out destroying it. 

Our science of man, then, is no longer an abstract 
thing that may be built up a priori and from general 
view^s ; it is the universal experimental method 
applied to human life, and consequently the study of 
all the products within the sphere of its activity, above 
all of its spontaneous activity. I prefer to the most 
beautiful Cartesian disquisitions the theory of primi- 
tive poesy and the national epic as Wolf viewed them, 
as they have been definitely settled by the comparative 
study of literatures. If aught can make us under- 
stand the aim of criticism and the importance of the 
discoveries we may expect from it, it is assuredly the 
fact of having explained by the same laws Homer 
and the Eamayana, the Niebelungen and the Shah- 
Nameh, the romance of the Cid, our own mediaeval 
legendary poems {Chansons de Gestes) the heroic 
songs of Scotland and Scandinavia (113). There 



The Future of Science. 249 

are traits of humanity capable of being fixed once for 
all, and for which the most ancient pictures are the 
best. Homer, the Bible, and the Vedas will last for 
ever. They will be read when the intermediary 
works shall have been forgotten ; they will ever be 
the sacred books of humanity. In fact, to the two 
phases of human thought there are two corresponding 
literatures ; primitive literatures, the ingenuous out- 
pourings of the peoples in their still spontaneous 
condition, rustic but withal natural flowers, direct 
manifestations of the national genius and traditions ; 
literatures that are the outcome of reflected thought, 
possessing much greater individuality than the 
others, and with regard to which questions of authen- 
ticity and integrity — impertinent in connection with 
primitive literatures — are of the greatest significance. 
Thus, two poems, like the " Iliad " and the " iEneid " 
placed side by side of old, are placed at the two poles 
of the idea. 

The general theory of the mythologies as estab- 
lished by Heyne, Niebuhr, Ottfried Miiller, Bauer, 
Strauss, comes within the same order of researches 
and implies the same principle. The mythologies 
are no longer to us a series of absurd and often 
ridiculous fables, but grandiose, divine poems, in 
which the primeval nations have poured out their 
dreams with regard to the supra-sensitive world. 
They are, in a certain sense, more valuable than 
history, for in history there is a necessary and 
fortuitous part which is not the work of humanity ; 
while in the fables everything is its own ; it is its 
portrait painted by its own hand. Fable is un- 
shackled, history is not. " The Book of Kings " of 
Firdousi is decidedly a very inferior history of Persia ; 
arid still that lovely poem represents to us the genius 
of Persia much better than would the most exact 
history : it gives us her legends and epic traditions, 
that is, her soul. Scholars often regret deeply that 
India has left us no history of any sort. But in 
reality we have something better than her history j 



250 The Future of Science. 



we have her sacred books, her philosophy. That 
history would be no doubt, like all other histories of 
the East, a mere dry nomenclature of her kings, a 
series of insignificant facts. Is it not better to be 
in direct possession of that which at great pains 
we should have to extract from the history, that 
which solely constitutes its value ; the spirit of the 
nation ? 

The races that are most philosophical are also the 
most mythological. Iudia presents the most astonish- 
ing phenomenon of the richest mythology side by 
side with a metaphysical development much superior 
to that of Greece ; perhaps even to that of Germany. 
The three characteristics that distinguish the Indo- 
Germanic peoples from the Semitic peoples are, that 
the Semitic peoples have neither philosophy ,— nor 
mythology, — nor epic (114); three things in reality 
very closely connected and due to an entirely 
different mode of looking at the world. The Semites 
never conceived " sex " in God ; the feminine of the 
word " God " in Hebrew would be the strangest bar- 
barism possible (115). Because of this they have 
deprived themselves of the possibility of " making" 
either a mythology or a divine epic ; a variety of 
complications being out of the question under an 
only and absolutely ruling God. Under such a 
regime the struggle becomes impossible. The God 
of Job replying to man with nothing but thunder- 
claps, is very poetical, but in noway epic. He is too 
strong, he crushes at the first blow. The angels do 
not offer any individual variety ; and all the sub- 
sequent efforts to invest them with a kind of 
physiognomy (archangels, seraphim, etc.) have led 
to nothing characteristic. And besides what interest 
could we take in messengers,, in ministers without 
initiative, without pp«ssion ? Under the regime of 
Jehovah mythological creation could only result in 
depicting the executors of his orders. Hence the 
roles assumed by the angels are as a rule cold and 
monotonous, like those of the messengers and con- 



The Future of Science. 25 1 

fidants.* Variety is the element most radically 
wanting in the peoples of Semitic origin ; their 
original poems would not make more than one 
volume. The themes are few in number and quickly 
exhausted. This God, isolated from nature ; this 
nature made by God, do not lend themselves to the 
conception of incident and to historical composition. 
What an enormous distance indeed between that 
vast deification of the forces of nature which is the 
foundation of the great mythologies and the narrow 
conception of a world fashioned like a bowi in the 
potter's hands. And it is thither we strayed in 
search - of our theology. .Doubtless, this mode of 
conceiving things is simple and majestic, but how 
colourless in comparison to those grandiose evolutions 
of Pan which the Indo-Germanic race at its poetic 
beginnings as well as at its end, understood so w T ell. 
Among the secondary sciences which must aid 
in constituting the science of humanity, there is no 
one more important than the philosophical and com- 
parative theory of languages. When we remember 
that this admirable science counts as yet but one 
generation of labour, and the precious discoveries to 
which it has already led, we cannot help wondering 
at its being so little cultivated, so little understood. 
Is it credible that there is not in the whole of Europe 
a single chair of philology, and that the College de 
France which boasts of representing in its curriculum 
the ensemble of the human intellect has no chair for 
one of the most important branches of human know- 
ledge, created by the nineteenth century? What 
historical results may we not expect from the classi- 
fication of languages into families, and above all 
from the formation of that group of which we are 
a part and the branches of which extend from the 
island of Ceylon to the deepest recesses of Brittany ? 
What lights to be thrown on ethnography, on primi- 

* To the French " messengers and confidants " is expressive 
enough. M. Eenan alludes to what in theatrical parlance we cail 
"the feeders" of Corneille and Racine's tragedi s. 



252 The Future of Science. 

tive history, on the origins of mankind ! What philo- 
sophical results in the ascertaining of the laws that 
have presided at the development of language, at 
the transformation of its mechanism, at the perpetual 
decompositions and recompositions which constitute 
its history. Would the analytical progress of thought 
have been discovered if the various languages had 
not shown us as in mirror the ceaseless march of the 
human intellect from synthesis and from primitive 
complexity to analysis and clearness ? Is it not 
the study of the primitive languages that has revealed 
to us the primitive characteristics of the exercise of 
the thinking faculties, the predominance of sensation 
and that deep sympathy which then bound man to 
nature ? What synopsis of the human intellect, in 
short, can be compared to that afforded by the com- 
parative study of the processes by which the various 
races have expressed the different nexus of thought ? 
I do not know of a more beautiful chapter of psycho- 
logy than the dissertations of von Humboldt on 
the dual number, on the adverbs of locality, or 
those that might be written on the comparison of 
Semitic and Indo-Germauic conjugations, on the 
general theory of pronouns, on the formation of 
roots, on the imperceptible deterioration and the 
rudimentary existence of the grammatical process in 
the various families, etc. What we cannot point out 
too often is the fact that through languages we get 
in touch with the primeval condition of man. 
Languages, in fact, do not create for themselves new 
processes, any more than they create new roots. 
Their whole progress consists in developing this or 
that process, in diverting the meaning of roots, 
but never in adding new ones. The populace and 
children alone enjoy the privilege of coining new 
words and turns of phrases that have no antecedents 
for their individual use. The thinking man never 
attempts to combine in an arbitrary way sounds to 
express a new idea, or to create a grammatical form 
to express a new nexus. We may conclude from this 



The Future of Science. 253 



that all the roots of the various families are the 
outcome of the way the primitive peoples felt and 
that all the grammatical processes proceed directly 
from the manner in which each race treated ideas ; 
that, in short, language in the whole of its construc- 
tion dates from the first days of man and brings us 
in touch with his origin. Personally, I am convinced 
that the language spoken by the first thinking beings 
of the Semitic race differed very little from the 
common type of all those languages, such as it 
presents itself to us in the Hebrew or Syriac. There 
can, at any rate, be no doubt that the roots of these 
idioms, the roots that still constitute the foundation 
of a language spoken on a large part of the globe 
were the first that rang in the deep and vigorous 
chests of the fathers of that race. And though it 
may seem paradoxical to maintain the same thing 
w T ith regard to our metaphysical languages, battered 
about by so many revolutions, one may fearlessly 
affirm that they do not contain a single word, a 
single process we may not connect by a direct affilia- 
tion to the first impressions of the first children of 
God. Let us, therefore, remember in Heaven's 
name what we have got in hand and let us labour to 
decipher that medal of days gone long ago. 

As a rule, people imagine the laws of the evolution 
of the human intellect to be much more simple than 
they are. It is very dangerous indeed to invest with 
a historical and chronological value the evolutions 
supposed to have been necessarily successive, to 
suppose, for instance, that at his origin man was 
a cannibal because that condition is considered 
as the most degraded. The reality presents a very 
much greater variation. There is not a thinker who 
pondering the history of humanity does not succeed 
in constructing a formula; those formulas do not 
coincide with, but they are not contradictory of, one 
another. The fact is that there are no two absolutely 
identical developments in humanity (116). There 
are laws, and very deeply rooted laws, the simple 



254 The Future of Science. 



action of which is never perceived, the result being 
always complicated by accidental circumstances. 
The general names by which we designate the 
various phases of the mind never apply in a perfectly 
univocal manner — as the schoolmen said — to two 
different states. " The line of humanity," says 
Herder, " is neither straight, nor uniform; it de- 
viates in every direction, and presents all the curves 
and all the angles imaginable. Neither the asymp- 
tote, nor the ellipsis, nor the cycloid can give us an 
idea of its law." The relations between things are 
not on a plane, but in space. There are dimensions 
in thought as there are dimensions in the expanse. 
Just as a classification only explains one lineal 
series of beings, and necessarily neglects several as 
real which cross the first and would require a 
classification apart so do all the laws express onby 
one system of relations and necessarily omit a thou- 
sand others. It is like a body of three dimensions 
projected on one plane. Certain traits will be pre- 
served, others will be altered, others again altogether 
omitted. The Middle Ages are in certain aspects 
like the Homeric times, and yet who could care to 
apply the same denomination to conditions so dif- 
ferent ? In this vast picture every one lays hold 
of a trait, a physiognomy, a ray of light ; no one 
grasps the ensemble and the significance of the whole. 
Let us take a traveller who has crossed France from 
north to south ; another from east to west ; a third 
following a different line ; each of them gives his 
account as the complete description of France ; that 
is the exact image of what up till now those have 
done who have attempted to present a system of the 
philosophy of histoiy (117). A geographical map 
cannot possibly be drawn unless the country intended 
to be represented has been explored in all directions. 
And let us bear in mind that history is the true 
philosophy of the nineteenth century. Our century 
is not metaphysical. It cares little about the in- 
trinsic discussion of questions. Its great concern is 



The Future of Science. 255 

history, and above all the history of the human 
intellect. Here lies the dividing point of the 
schools ; a man is a philosopher or a believer ac- 
cording to his manner of looking at history ; a man 
believes in humanity or does not believe in it 
according to the system he has conceived of its 
history. If the history of the human mind be only 
a succession of systems that upset one another, all 
we can do is to throw ourselves into the arms of 
scepticism or into those of faith. If the history 
of the human intellect be the onward march towards 
the truth between two oscillations which have the 
effect of restricting more and more the domain of 
error, we are justified in still putting our trust in 
reason. Every one in our days is what he is accord- 
ing to the way in which he understands history. 

The comparative study of religions when once 
definitely established on the solid basis of criticism 
will constitute the noblest chapter in the history of 
the human intellect, finding its place between the 
history of mythologies and the history of philosophies. 
Religion, like philosophy supplies a speculative want 
of humanity. Like mythology, it contains a large 
part of the records of spontaneous and non-premedi- 
tated exertion of the human faculties. Hence its 
priceless value from the philosopher's point of view. 
Just as a Gothic cathedral is the best piece of evidence 
of the Middle Ages, because the generations have 
dwelt there in the spirit ; so is religion the best 
means of understanding humanity ; for humanity 
has dwelt there ; it is the deserted tent in which 
everything attests the traces of those whom it 
sheltered. Woe to him who passes by those vener- 
able tenements with indifference, those venerable 
tenements in the shadow of which humanity has 
lingered so long and where so many noble souls still 
find comfort and awe. Even if the roof lets in the 
light of heaven and the torrents from the sky drench 
the upturned face of the believer on his knees, 
science would wish to study those ruins, to describe 



256 The Future of Science. 

all the statuettes that adorn them, to lift the stained 
window panes which only admit a mysterious semi- 
glow, in order to introduce the radiant sun, and to 
study at leisure those admirable petrifactions of 
human thought. 

The history of religions has, as yet, almost entirely 
to be created. Numberless causes of respect and 
timidity operate on that point against thorough 
frankness, without which rational discussion becomes 
impossible, and in reality, render the position of 
those grand systems more unfavourable than advan- 
tageous from the point of view of science. Religions 
seem to have been tabooed by humanity, it takes 
them a long while to obtain the recognition of 
their value, the value which is theirs from the 
standpoint of criticism ; and the silence concerning 
them may breed an illusion as to the importance of 
the part they have enacted in the development of 
ideas. A history of philosophy (118), which should 
devote a volume to Plato, ought, it seems, to devote 
two to Jesus ; and still the chances are that His 
name will not be mentioned once. It is not the 
historian's fault ; it is the consequence of Jesus' 
position. Such is the fate of everything that attains 
religious consecration. How much, for instance, 
has not Hebraic literature suffered from the stand- 
point of science and taste by becoming the Bible ? 
Whether from mere bad temper, or from the remains 
of superstition, scientific and literary criticism 
shrinks from considering as its own works which have 
been sequestrated in that way from profane and 
natural influences, by which we mean, that which is. 
Nevertheless are the books themselves to blame ? 
Could the author of that delightful little poem 
called " The Song of Songs " have foreseen that one 
day he would have to part company with Anacreon 
and Hafiz to be made into an inspired singer who 
only sang of divine love ? It is really time that 
criticism should become accustomed to take its 
material wherever it finds it, and not to make di^- 



The Future of Science. 257 

tinctions between the works of the human intellect 
when it becomes a question of leading opinion, of 
admiring. It is time for reason to cease to criticize 
religions as alien works, set up against it by a rival 
power and to finally recognize its own concern in all 
the productions of humanity without distinction or 
antithesis. It is time to proclaim the fact that one 
sole cause has wrought everythiug in the domain of 
intellect, the human mind, operating according to 
identical laws, but among different surroundings. To 
hear certain rationalists, we should be tempted to 
believe that religions came from heaven to confront 
reason for the pleasure of thwarting it ; as if human 
nature had not done everything by different aspects 
of itself. No doubt, we may oppose religion and 
philosophy as we oppose two systems, but in recog- 
nizing that they have the same origin and occupy 
the same ground. The old method of polemics 
seemed to concede that religions have a different 
origin, and from this very fact was induced to insult 
it. By being bolder, we shall be more respectful. 

The lofty serenity of science becomes possible 
only on the condition of impartial criticism, which 
without regard for the beliefs of a certain portion of 
humanity, handles its imperturbable instrument with 
the inflexibility of the geometrician, without anger 
and without pity. The critic never insults. When 
we shall have reached the point at which the history 
of Jesus shall be as open to discussion as the history 
of Buddha and of Mahomed, people will no longer 
dream of addressing harsh reproaches to those whom 
circumstances have deprived of the light of criticism. 
I am certain that M. Eugene Burnouf has never 
been angry with the authors of the fabulous life of 
Buddha, and that those among the Europeans who 
have written the life of Mahomed have never felt 
any violent spite against Abulfeda and the Mussulman 
authors who have written the life of their prophet a,s 
true believers. The apologists maintain that it is 
religion which has wrought all the great things of 

s 



258 The Future of Science. 

humanity, and they are right. The philosophers 
believe that they are striving for the honour of 
philosophy Toy depreciating religion, and they are 
wrong. As for ourselves who advocate but one sole 
cause, the cause of the human intellect, our admira- 
tion is much more unfettered. We should fancy that 
we were wronging ourselves by withholding our admi- 
ration from anything wrought by the human intel- 
lect. We ought to criticize religions in the same 
way that we criticize primitive poems. Do w T e show 
any temper with Homer or Yalmiki, because their 
manner is not that of our own epoch ? 

Heaven be praised, no one, nowadays, feels tempted 
to enter upon the discussion of religion with that 
spirit of disdainful criticism of the eighteenth century 
which flattered itself that it was capable of explaining 
everything by the use of words of superficial clear- 
ness, superstition, credulity, fanaticism. To a more 
advanced critic, religions are the philosophies of the 
spontaneous, philosophies, amalgamated with hetero- 
geneous elements, like food that is not solely made 
up of nutritious parts. Apparently, the very finest 
would be preferable but the stomach would not be 
able to digest it. Exclusively scientific formulas 
would afford but a dry food, and so true is this, that 
with every great philosophical thought there is mixed 
up a little mysticism ; that is, a compound of indi- 
vidual fantasy and religion. 

Eeligions, therefore, are the purest and most com- 
plete expressions of human nature, the shell in which 
its forms are moulded, the bed on which it lies, on 
which it leaves the impression of the curves of its 
outlines. Eeligions -and languages should be the 
first studies of the psychologist. For humanity is 
much more easily recognized in its products than in 
its abstract essence, and in its spontaneous products 
than in its premeditated ones. Science being wholly 
objective, has nothing that is personal or individual 
in it, religions, on the other hand, are individual, 
national by their very essence ; they are in one word, 



The Future of Science. 259 

subjective. Religions were made at a time when 
man put himself into all his works. Take up a work 
of modern science, "VAstronomie Physique''' of M. 
Biot or " la Chimie" of M. Regnault ; you will find 
it the most perfect specimen of objective treatment ; 
there is a complete absence of the author himself, 
the work bears neither an individual nor a national 
stamp ; it is an intellectual, not a human work. 
Popular science, and in many respects, ancient 
science, only saw man through the prism of man and 
dyed him with colours altogether human. For a 
long while after modern men of science had created 
for themselves more perfect means of observation, 
there remained numerous causes of aberration which 
disfigured, and impaired with false colours, the out- 
lines of objects. On the other hand, the telescope 
with which the moderns take their observations of 
the world is perfectly achromatic. If there are any 
other intellects than that of man we cannot well con- 
ceive that they can see otherwise. Scientific works, 
therefore, can in no way convey an idea of the 
originality of human nature nor of its proper character, 
while in a work in which fancy and the feelings have 
borne a large part is much more human and con- 
sequently more adapted to the experimental study 
of the instincts of psychological nature. 

Hence the immense interest of everything that 
appertains to religion, to the popular instinct, of 
primitive narrative, of fable, of superstitious beliefs. 
Each nation spends her very soul over it, creates it 
out of her own substance. Tacitus, whatever may 
be his talents for painting human nature, contains 
less true psychology than the artless and credulous 
narrative of the Gospels. It is because the narrative 
of Tacitus is objective ; he narrates or endeavours 
to narrate things and their causes as they really 
were ; the narrative of the Evangelists, on the con- 
trary, is subjective ; they do not recount things, but 
the views they conceived of things, the manner in 
which they appreciated them. I may be allowed to 



260 The Future of Science. 



give an instance in point. While passing by a church- 
yard, at night, I have been pursued by a will o' the 
wisp. In relating my adventure, I should express 
myself thus ; " One evening in passing by a church- 
yard, I was pursued by a will o' the wisp." On the other 
hand, a peasant woman who happens to have lost 
her brother a few days before, and to whom a similar 
adventure had occurred, would express herself as 
follows ; " While I was passing by the churchyard 
at night I was pursued by the soul of my brother." 
Here we have two accounts of the same fact, both 
perfectly veracious. What then constitutes their 
difference ? The first recounts the fact in its naked 
reality ; the second mingles a subjective element with 
it, an appreciation, a judgment, a view of the narrator 
herself. The one narrative was simple, the other is 
complex and mingles with the affirmation of the fact 
a judgment of cause (119). All the narratives of the 
primitive ages are subjective ; those of the thinking 
ages are objective. Criticism consists in recover- 
ing, as far as possible the real colour of facts, from 
the colours as refracted through the prism of the 
nationality or individuality of the narrators. 

Hence, the history of religions is the true history 
of philosophy. The work most urgently wanted for 
the advancement of the sciences of humanity would 
be, therefore, a philosophical theory of religions. But 
how could we possibly get such a theory without 
erudition ? Islamism is certainly very well known 
by the students of Arabian literature ; there is no 
religion which offers fewer obstacles to inquiry ; 
nevertheless, in the ordinary books Islamism is the 
object of the most absurd fables, of the most erro- 
neous judgments. And yet, Islamism, although the 
weakest of all religions from the standpoint of creative 
originality (the sap had already run dry), is of major 
importance in that comparative study, because we 
have authentic documents on its origins, which is 
not the case with any other religion ; the primitive 
facts of the apparitions of religions, occurring in the 



TJie Future of Science. 261 

spontaneous conditions of humanity leaving no trace. 
Religion does not become conscious of itself until it 
lias reached the adult and developed state, that is, 
when the primitive facts have disappeared for ever. 
Eeligions, no more than individual man, remember 
their infancy, and it is very rare that extraneous 
documents are fouud to dispel the darkness that 
surrounds their cradle. Islamism affords the only 
exception in that respect, it is born when history is 
already in full swing ; the traces of the disputes it 
provoked and of the incredulity it had to fight against 
still exist. The Koran is from beginning to end 
nothing but a mass of sophistical argumentation. 
There was a great deal of reflection in Mahomed and 
even a little of what — if driven to it — we might call 
imposture (120). The facts that succeeded the estab- 
lishment of Islamism and which are eminently calcu- 
lated to show the manner in which religions are 
consolidated, do also, every one of them, belong to 
the domain of history. 

Buddhism does not share this advantage. Induc- 
tion and conjectures will necessarily have to play a 
large part in the history of its origins. But what 
inestimable lights will not that vast development 
afford for the discovery of the laws that presided at 
the formation of a religious system ; that vast de- 
velopment so analogous to Christianity, which start- 
ing from India has invaded half of Asia and despatched 
missionaries far and wide from the territories of the 
Seleucidge to the uttermost corners of China. The pro- 
blem of primitive Christianity will not be ripe until the 
day when M. Eugene Burnouf shall have finished his 
" Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism." 

And, the most important book of the nineteenth 
century should bear the title of; "A Critical History 
of the Origins of Christianity." Oh, the admirable 
book, the author of which I envy and which will be 
the work of my ripe age, if I am not prevented by death 
and the many outwardly fatal incidents which so 
often and forcedly cause a life to turn aside from its 



262 The Future of Science. 



original purpose. People do so obstinately persist 
in repeating such utterly erroneous platitudes on the 
subject. They think that the subject is exhausted 
when they have mentioned the fusion of Judaism, 
PLatonism and Orientalism, without having any 
notion of what is Orientalism, without their being able 
to say how Jesus and the apostles came by any tradi- 
tions of Plato. Because as yet no one has dreamt of 
looking for the origins of Christianity there where they 
really exist, in the Deutero-Canonical books, in the 
apocryphal writings of Jewish origin, in the Mishna, 
in the Pirke-Avoth, in the works of the Judseo-Chris- 
tians. People look for Christianity in the works of 
the Platonist Fathers who only represent a second 
moment of its existence. Christianity is primarily 
a Jewish fact, just as Buddhism is an Indian fact, 
albeit that Christianity like Buddhism was almost 
exterminated from the countries that gave it birth 
and that the admixture with foreign ingredients may 
have cast a doubt upon its origin. 

As for me, if ever I undertook that great work, 
I should begin by an exact catalogue of the sources, 
that is of everything that has been written in the 
East from the captivity of the Jews in Babylon until 
the moment Christianity is finally constituted, with- 
out overlooking the very important aid to be derived 
from monuments, engraved stones, etc. Then I 
should devote a volume to the criticism of those 
sources. I should take one after the other the frag- 
ments of Daniel written in the time of the Maccabees, 
the Book of Wisdom, the Chaldaic paraphrases, the 
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Books of 
the New Testament, the Mishna, the Apocryphas, 
etc., and I would try to ascertain by the most scru- 
pulous criticism, the exact period, the locality, the 
intellectual surroundings in which those works were 
composed. That done, I should be solely guided by 
those data in the formation of my ideas and com- 
pletely discard all the fancies in which others have 
indulged either by the process of induction or on 



The Future of Science. 2G3 

nothing more substantial than vague analogies. No 
doubt the universal knowledge of the human intellact 
would be necessary for that history. But one should 
be careful not to transform analogies into reciprocal 
loans, if history says nothing about the reality of 
such loans. Our French critics who have only studied 
the« Greek and Latin worlds would have great difficulty 
in understanding that Christianity was at the outset an 
exclusively Jewish fact. Christianity in their opinion 
is the work of collective humanity; Socrates com- 
posed, as it w T ere, the prelude to it, Plato laboured 
at it, Terence and Virgil are already Christians, 
Seneca still more so. This is true, perfectly true, 
provided one can grasp the meaning of it. Chris- 
tianity in reality only became what it is when 
humanity adopted it as the expression of the wants 
and tendencies by which it had been stirred for ever 
so long. Christianity, such as it prevails amongst 
us, contains in fact, elements of every date, of every 
country. But the important point to bring to light, 
which is not sufficiently noticed, is that the primitive 
germ is wholly Jewish, that the apparition of Jesus 
is simply simultaneous with the Christianity antici- 
pated by the Greco-Latin world ; that the Gospel 
and Saint-Paul must be explained by the Talmud 
and not by Plato (121). The soil w 7 hence Christianity 
drew its sap, in which it spread its roots, is humanity, 
and above all the Greco-Latin world ; but the kernel 
from which it sprang is wholly Jewish. What I 
wish to indicate here is the history of that curious 
formation and development, the history of the roots 
of Christianity up to the moment that the tree 
appears above ground, while as yet it is only a 
Jewish sect, up to the moment when it is adopted, 
or rather absorbed by the nations. It is still wholly 
a matter of conjecture ; neither Christians, nor 
Jews, nor Pagans having left us anything historical 
on that first apparition, or on the principal hero. 
But criticism may recover history from legend or 
at any rate trace back the characteristic aspect of 



26 4 TJie Future of Science. 

the period and its works. Scholastic precision, here 
as always, excludes criticism. W-e may set ourselves 
a number of questions on the Resurrection, on the 
miracles of the Gospel, on the character of Jesus and 
of the Apostles which it is impossible to answer by 
judging the first century after our own. If Jesus did 
not really rise from the dead, how is it that the belief 
in such resurrection spread ? Are we to conclude 
then that the Apostles were impostors, the Evangelists 
liars ? How is it that the Jews did not protest ? 
How is it that . . . etc., etc. All these are questions 
that would have a meaning in our century of reflection 
and publicity, but which had none in a period of credu- 
lity when no critical thought raised its voice (122). 

The first step in the comparative study of religion 
will be, it seems to me, to establish two very distinct 
classes among those curious products of the human 
intellect ; organized religions, having sacred books 
precise dogmas ; non-organized religions, possessing 
neither sacred books, nor dogmas, being only more 
or less pure forms of the worship of nature, and 
having no pretensions whatsoever to spring from 
revelations. The first class would comprise ; Judaism, 
Christianity, Islamism, Parseeism, Brahminism, 
Buddhism, to which may be added Manichaeism, 
which is not merely a sect or a Christian heresy, as 
people often imagine, but a religious apparition, 
grafted like Christianity, Islamism and Buddhism on 
an anterior religion. The second class should com- 
prise the mythological polytheisms of the Greeks, 
the Scandinavians, the Gauls and in general all the 
mythologies of the peoples who had no sacred books. 
Candidly speaking, these forms of worship scarcely 
deserve the name of religions ; the idea of revelation is 
utterly foreign to them ; it is pure naturalism expressed 
by a poetical symbolism. It would perhaps be more 
becoming to restrict the name of religions to the 
dogmatic compositions of Western and Southern Asia. 
It is certain, thougjj, that the existence of the sacred 
book is the criterion that should determine the classi- 



The Future of Science. 265 

fioation of religions, because it is the mark of a more 
profound character ; the dogmatic organization. It 
is also certain that the East presents itself as the 
soil whence sprang the great organized religions. The 
East has always lived in that psychological condition 
which is favourable to the birth of myths. It has 
never arrived at that perfect clearness of consciousness 
which is rationalism. The East has never understood 
the true philosophical grandeur which can dispense 
with miracles. It sets little store by a sage who is 
not also a thaumaturge (123). The sacred book is 
an exclusively Asiatic production. Europe has not 
created a single one (124). 

Another characteristic, not less essential, and which 
may serve as well as the sacred book to distinguish 
religions is tolerance or exclusivism. The old mytho- 
logical forms of worship, not claiming to be the 
absolute form of religion, but merely professing to be 
local forms, did not exclude the other forms. 

" I have my God whom I serve ; you shall serve 
yours. They are two powerful Gods." 

That is the pure expression of that religious form. 
Each nation, each city has its gods, more or less 
powerful ; it is perfectly natural that the one city 
should not serve those of another. ' Jehovah himself 
is often only the God of Jacob, cherishing his people 
with the same feelings of national partiality as the 
other local deities. Hence those challenges with 
regard to the respective powers of the gods, each 
nation insisting that her own are strongest, but which 
challenges in no way imply that they are the only 
gods. It is altogether different in the Judaism of 
the times of the prophets, and in general in all the 
great organized religions. Jehovah alone is God, all 
the rest are so many idols. Hence the idea of a true 
religion which had no meaning in the mythological 
forms of worship. And seeing that in those epochs, 
the truth- is conceived as a revelation from the 
Divinity, that characteristic manifests itself in 
revealed religion (125). 



2Q6 The Future of Science. 

Last of all, the organized religions are distinguished 
from the forms of mythological worship by a greater 
character of stability and duration. It is literally 
true that up till now, not a single great religion is 
positively dead and that the most ill-treated ones, 
Parseeism, Samaritanism, etc., still live in the faith 
of some tribe or other, or relegated to some distant 
nook of the globe. 

Thus, on the one side ; organized religions, claim- 
ing to be based upon revelation, absolute, exclusively 
true and possessing a sacred book. — On the other ; 
non-organized religions, local, not exclusive, not 
having a sacred book. 

The great Asiatic religions would group themselves 
as it were in three families, or rather would claim 
connection with three sources: (1) The Semitic 
family (Judaism, Christianity, Islamism) ; (2) The 
Aryan family (Parseeism, Manichasism) ; (3) The 
Indian family (Brahmanism, Buddhism). Within 
each family, the successive reforms have only been 
the developments of the self-same foundation (126). 
Strictly speaking we could not say that religions are 
a question of racial idiosyncracy, seeing that the 
Indo-Germanic peoples have created religions as well 
as the Semitic peoples. Still it would be idle to 
deny that the Indo-Germanic religions have a stamp 
apart. They are very nearly systems of pure philo- 
sophy. Buddha was only a philosopher ; Brahmanism 
has little in common with the other organized religions 
save the sacred book and is in reality nothing more 
than the most simple expression of naturalism. A 
more noticeable difference still ; all the Semitic 
religions are essentially monotheistic ; the race has 
never had a developed mythology. All the Indo- 
Germanic religions are, on the contrary, either 
pantheistic or dnalistic and boast a vast mythological 
or symbolical development (127). It would seem 
that among the peoples the creative faculties with 
regard to religions were in inverse ratio to the philo- 
sophical faculties. The premeditated, independent, 



The Future of Science. 267 



severe, courageous — in one word — philosophical 
search after the truth seems to have been the inherit- 
ance of that Indo-Germanic race which from the 
uttermost coufines of India to the farthest extremes 
of the West and the North, from the most distant 
centuries to modern times, has endeavoured to ex- 
plain God, man and the world to the rationalistic 
sense, and has left behind it, posted as it were, at the 
different stages of its history, those systems, those 
philosophical creations, subject always and everywhere 
to the unvarying and necessary laws of a logical de- 
velopment. The Semites, on the contrary, who do 
not show us a single attempt at analysis, who have 
not produced a single school of native philosophy, 
are par excellence the race of religions, destined to 
give them birth and to propagate them. Theirs is 
the privilege of those bold and spontaneous flights of 
natures, still in the flush of youth, penetrating without 
an effort and by a most natural movement as it were 
into the very bosom of the infinite, and descending 
from it thoroughly drenched with divine dew, then 
letting their enthusiasm exhale in a form of worship, 
in a mystic doctrine, in a revealed book. The philo- 
sophical school has its cradle under the skies of 
Greece and India ; the temple and priestly science 
explaining themselves in enigmas and in creeds, 
veiling the truth beneath mystery, often soaring 
higher because it is less afraid of looking backward 
and making sure of its onward march, such is the 
character of the religious and theocratic race of the 
Semites. They are " God's people " par excellence, 
and the exceptional atheist is to them a being devoid 
of meaning, an enigma, a monster in the universe. 
They have that moral instinct, that sound sense, 
practical and not capable of analyzing very deeply, 
but popular and easy-going which constitutes the 
genius of religions, and added to this the prophetic 
gift which often succeeds in speaking of God more 
eloquently and above all more exuberantly than 
science and rationalism (128). And in fact is it not a 



268 The Future of Science. 

thing worthy of remark that the three religions which 
up till now have played the greatest part in the 
history of civilization, the three religions stamped 
with a special character of stability, fruitfulness and 
proselytism, and moreover hound to one another by 
such close relations as to make them seem three 
branches of a same trunk, three versions — not equally 
beautiful and pure — of a self-same idea, is it not 
worthy of remark that all three should have been 
born on Semitic ground, and from there should have 
started forth to the conquest of high destinies. The 
distance between Jerusalem and Sinai, and between 
Sinai and Mecca is but a few miles (12bV). 

Still, seeing that races do not differ in virtue of 
the possession of different faculties, but through the 
different extension of the same faculties, seeing that 
what constitutes the dominant characteristic in some 
is found among others in a rudimentary condition, 
Greece presents the unmistakable germs of the pro- 
cesses which in the East created the revealer, the 
man-god and the prophet. But they (the processes) 
always miscarried before they could become a genuine 
religious tradition. The system of Pythagoras with 
its degrees, its initiations, its novitiates, its distinct 
tinge of asceticism reminds one of the grand organized 
systems of Asia. Pythagoras himself is very like 
a theurge. He is infallible (avros ecfxt) ; a disciple 
who has incurred his blame kills himself. He has 
visited the nether regions, and remembers his trans- 
migrations. He willingly lends himself to, or even 
supplies the occasion for, such beliefs ; he recognizes 
in a temple of Greece the arms he bore at the siege 
of Troy. In the East Pythagoras would have been 
Buddha. This colouring is even more striking in 
Empedocles, who represents the Oriental theurge 
in every trait. A priest and a poet, like Orpheus, 
a physician and a thaumaturge the whole of Sicily 
riugs with his miracles. He raised the dead, stayed 
the winds, averted the plague. He only appeared in 
public amidst a train of servitors, the sacred crown 



Hie Future of Science. 269 

on his head, the tinkling brass sandals on his feet, 
with flowing locks, his hand holding the laurel 
branch. His divinity was admitted throughout 
Sicily, he himself proclaimed it. " Ye friends, who 
dwell on the heights of the great city washed by the 
yellow Acragas ; " he writes at the beginning of one 
of his poems ; " ye zealous observers of justice, hail ! 
I am not a man, I am a God. On my entering the 
nourishing cities men and women prostrate them- 
selves. The multitude follow my footsteps. Some 
ask me for oracles, others the cure for cruel maladies by 
which they are tormented." The processes by which 
his miraculous legend is constituted remind one in 
every particular of those of the East. A trance from 
which he has roused some one becomes a resurrection. 
He arrests the Etesian gales that are devastating Agri- 
gentum by closing a gap between two rocks ; hence 
the surname of KoXvaavefuxs. He drains a marsh 
close to Selinus, which is sufficient to make him an 
equal of Apollo. Here we have analogies very 
characteristic of the founders of religion in the East. 
But alas, Greece was too nighty to dwell for very 
long on those beliefs and to constitute them into 
religious traditions ; the divinity of Empedocles came 
to grief against the scepticism of the scoffers, and 
spiteful legend made merry over his sandals that 
were found on Etna. Asia has never known how to 
laugh, and it is because of this that she is religious. 

As for the mythological forms of worship that were 
not organized, that had no sacred book, their variety 
is much greater, or to speak correctly all classifica- 
tion here becomes impossible. They are all so much 
pure fantasy, it is human imagination constantly 
broidering on a self-same canvas, which is natural 
religion. Comparing poem with poem, creed with 
creed, the variety in this instance becomes every 
now and then almost individual, a simple family 
affair. The most one can do is to indicate the diverse 
degrees and ages of those curious processes. At the 
lowest degree stands fetichism, that is, the individual 



270 The Future- of Science. 

or family mythologies, fables evolved from dreams 
and affirmed in the most arbitrary way, fables with- 
out the slightest traditional antecedent, without 
the idea of their truth ever presenting itself to the 
mind, any more than it did in the dream, the fable 
for the fable's sake. Then came the more pre- 
meditated myths, in which the instincts of human 
nature express themselves in a more distinct manner, 
that is, they already show a certain analysis, but 
without reflection or perception of allegorical sym- 
bolism. At last comes the thought-out symbolism, 
the allegory created with the distinct consciousness 
of the double meaning which utterly escapes the first 
creators of myths. 

In reality every mythological creation like every 
religious development goes through two very distinct 
phases ; the creative age when the grand traits of 
legend are traced deep down the popular conscience, 
and the age of remodelling, of adjustment, of verbose 
amplification when the grand poetical vein is lost 
and when the whole thing consists in the re-dishing 
of the old poetical fables after a stereotyped process 
beyond which they no longer go. Hesiod on the one 
side, the Alexandrian mythologists on the other ; the 
Vedas on the one side, the Puranas on the other ; 
the canonical Gospels on the one side, the Apocryphas 
on the other afford so many examples of this trans- 
formation of mythologies. It is simply a way of 
taking the myths of olden times and amplifying 
them by fusing all the original traits in the new 
narrative, and to a certain extent of composing the 
•monograph of what was but a mere detail in the 
grand primitive fable ; the whole of it requiring but 
little power of invention, because there is never a 
deviation from the given theme. That which must 
have probably happened is added, the situation is 
amplified, certain links are forged. It is, in short, 
a carefully considered composition and in one sense, 
a literary one, having for its bases a spontaneous 
creation. That age is necessarily insipid and weari- 



The Future of Science. 271 

some. For the spontaneous production, so full of 
life, so graceful, does not admit of being remodelled. 
What chance is there for the naive thoughts of a 
child, ponderously commented on by pedants, delicate 
flowers that wither by passing from hand to hand ? 
Do not you think that to the primitive men that 
created them, Venus, Pan, the Graces had a meaning 
different from that which they convey in the park at 
Versailles, reduced as they were to a chilling alle- 
gorism by a thinking age, which from mere fantasy 
goes in search of a mythology of the past, in order to 
coin from it a conventional language for its own 
use (129) ? 

Those two phases in legendary creation correspond 
with the two ages of every religion ; the primitive 
age in which religion is evolved beautiful and pure 
from man's conscience, like the sun's rays ; the age 
of naive and simple faith without afterthought, with- 
out objection or refutation ; and the thinking age, 
marked by the rise of objection and apology ; the 
subtle age in which reflection becomes exacting, 
without being able to obtain satisfaction ; in which the 
marvellous, formerly " so easily accepted," so beau- 
tiful in its imaginings, so gentle in its conceptions, 
the so eminently pure reflex of the moral instincts of 
humanity, becomes timid and paltry, sometimes im- 
moral, pettily supernatural, a series of miracles arro- 
gated by coteries and brotherhoods, etc. Everything 
shrinks and dwindles, the practice of religion becomes 
devoid of meaning and materialized ; prayer becomes 
a mere mechanical performance, worship a mere 
ceremonial, formulas become a kind of Cabbalism, in 
wbich words operate not as formerly by their moral 
sense, but by their sound and articulation ; legal 
prescriptions, originally stamped with a deep sense 
of morality become mere irksome prohibitions which 
people seek to elude until the day when they shall 
rind some subtle argument to rid themselves alto- 
gether of them (130). In the primeval age, religion 
has no need of creeds; it is a new spirit, a fire that 



272 The Future of Science. 

goes on consuming everything before it, it is free and 
boundless. Then, when the enthusiasm has sub- 
sided, when the original and native force is ex- 
tinguished, man begins to define, to combine, to 
speculate upon that which the first believers had 
embraced in faith and love. That day beholds the 
birth of scholasticism, on that day the first germ of 
incredulity is sown. I cannot state all my percep- 
tions on this fruitful subject nor the wealth of 
psychological knowledge that might accrue from the 
study of those admirable works of human nature. 
I am aware that our position face to face with those 
strange works is a singular one. Replete with life 
and truth to the peoples who created them, they are 
to us merely an object of analysis and dissection. 
This, in 1 one sense, constitutes an inferior position 
which will always debar us from arriving at a perfect 
understanding of them. How often, in pondering the 
mythology of India for instance, have I been struck 
with the absolute impossibility, as far as we are 
concerned of understanding the life and soul of it. 
We, in this instance are confronted with works, 
deeply expressive, brimful of significance to a por- 
tion of humanity, we the sceptics, the analysts. 
How could they possibly tell us what they tell them ? 
They who believed in Christ can understand Him. 
In the same way, to understand in all their import 
those sublime creations, one must have believed in 
them, or rather (for the word to believe has no mean- 
ing in the world of fantasy) one must have lived 
with them. Would it not be possible to realize that 
wonder by such a vast progress of the scientific spirit 
as would make people profoundly sympathetic with 
everything humanity has accomplished ? It is diffi- 
cult to say 7 , but it is certain at any rate, that those 
systems containing as they do, more or less precious 
atoms of human nature, that is, of truth, he who 
succeeds in understanding them, would find solid 
nourishment there. It may be taken as a general 
rule that when a work of the human intellect seems 



Hie Future of Science. 273 

too absurd or too odd, it is because we do not under- 
stand it, or take it in the wrong sense. If we placed 
ourselves in the true light we should see the sense 
of it. 

I wanted to show by a few instances the philoso- 
phical results to which the sciences of pure scholar- 
ship may lead and how unjust is the contempt for 
those studies felt by certain intellects, themselves 
gifted with the philosophical sense. What if I 
were to show, in the case of the philosophy of 
history, that this marvellous science, which one day 
will be the ruling science, will never succeed in 
constituting itself in a serious and dignified manner 
except by the aid of the most scrupulous learning, 
that until then it will remain in the same condition 
as were the physical sciences before Bacon, that is, 
wandering 'from one hypothesis to another, without 
a settled " way-bill," not knowing what form to 
give to its laws and never going beyond the sphere 
of artificial and fantastic creations ? 

What, if I were to show that literary criticism 
which is our domain proper, and of which we are 
deservedly proud can never become serious and pro- 
found except by the aid of learning ? How can we 
grasp the physiognomy and originality of primitive 
literatures, if we do not penetrate into the moral and 
intimate life of the nation, if we do not place our- 
selves on the same standpoint of humanity which 
it occupied, in order to see and to feel as it did ; if 
we do not watch its life, or rather if we do not share 
its life, if only for a moment ? Besides, there is as 
a rule nothing more silly than the admiration be- 
stowed upon antiquity. People do not admire its 
original and really admirable features ; but in a paltry 
spirit pick out in the works of antiquity the traits 
which approach our own ; they endeavour to point 
out the beauties which with us — one is bound to 
admit it — would be considered as of a second rate 
order. The way superficial intellects stand embar- 
rassed when face to face with the grand productions 

T 



274 The Future of Science. 

of classical literature is very amusing indeed. They 
start from the principle that those works must be 
beautiful under any circumstances, seeing that the 
connoisseurs have decided as much. But as they are 
incapable — for lack of scholarship — to grasp their 
intense originality, their truth, their value in the 
history of the human intellect, they wind themselves 
up to a pitch of admiration, to an enthusiastic appre- 
ciation of the beauties of antiquity, which in fact, 
is only admiration of their own silliness. Utterly 
conventional admiration, " turned on " for form's sake 
and in order to escape from the self-reproach of 
barbarism which the non-admiration of works ad- 
mired by connoisseurs would imply. Hence the self- 
inflicted tortures in order to rise to the occasion 
when face to face with works which absolutely must 
be voted beautiful, in order to discover a small detail, 
an epithet, a brilliant trait, a sentence which trans- 
lated into French would sound startling. If they 
were honest about it, they would prefer Seneca to 
Demosthenes (131). Certain people who have been 
told that Rollin is beautiful are astonished at only 
finding very simple phrases, and do not know where 
to lay hold of a point for admiration, incapable as 
they are of conceiving the beauty resulting from that 
naive and delightfully upright nature. It is the man 
himself, who is beautiful, it is the things themselves 
that are beautiful, and not the way they are ex- 
pressed. But there are so few people capable of 
judging sesthetically. They admire on trust and in 
order not to remain behind. How many people, 
standing before a picture by Eaffaele know what con- 
stitutes its beauty ? How many if they frankly 
stated their opinion would prefer a modern picture, 
with a clearer style and a more brilliant colouring ? 
One of the keenest pleasures is to see mediocre in- 
tellects floundering about with regard to works they 
have been told beforehand are beautiful. Freron 
admires Sophocles for having respected certain con- 
ventionalities which, assuredly were the last things 



The Future of Science. 275 

to enter that poet's mind. As a rule the Greeks 
knew nothing of the beauties of design, and the 
credit we bestow upon them in that respect is purely 
gratuitous. I have heard people express their ad- 
miration of the entrance upon the scene of " Oedipus 
Tyrannus," because his first line contains a pretty 
antithesis for which there is an equivalent in a line 
by Racine. 

Ever since people have gone on repeating (and 
justly) that the Bible is admirable, every one pro- 
fesses great admiration of the Bible. The result of 
this favourable disposition is precisely the admira- 
tion of that which is not there. Bossuet, who is 
supposed to be such a very Biblical scholar, and who 
is scarcely anything of the kind, goes into ecstacies 
over the blunders and the solecisms of the Vulgate, 
and professes to discover beauties in them of which 
there is no trace in the original (132). That worthy 
Rollin is more ingenuous still and points out in " the 
Song of Moses and Miriam" the exordium, the con- 
nection of ideas, the plan, even the style. To wind 
up, Lowth, more insipid than all the others, gives 
us a treatise of Aristotelian rhetoric on the poesy of 
the Hebrews, in which we find a chapter " On the 
Metaphors of the Bible," another on the Comparisons, 
a third on the prosopopoeia, a fourth on the sublime 
in diction', etc. ; without suspecting for a moment 
that which really does constitute the beauty of those 
ancient poems, namely ; the spontaneous inspiration 
— independent of artificial and premeditated forms — 
of the human intellect, still young and fresh to the 
world, carrying with it everywhere God of whom it 
still preserves the recent impression. Admiration, 
in order to be to the purpose and useful must, 
therefore, be historical and scholarly. Each work 
is beautiful when considered amidst its own sur- 
roundings, and not because it fits one of the pigeon 
holes that have been established more or less arbi- 
trarily. To establish absolute divisions in literature, 
to declare that a work shall be an epic, or an ode, 



276 The Future of Science. 

or a novel, and to criticize the works of the past 
according to the rules that have been laid down for 
each of these kinds, to blame Dante for having 
written a work which is neither an epic, nor a drama, 
nor a didactic poem, to blame Klopstock for having 
taken too perfect a hero, to do all this, is simply to 
ignore the liberty of inspiration, and the right of the 
intellect to blow from the quarter whence it chooses. 
Every mode of realizing the beautiful is legitimate 
and genius has ever the same right to create. The 
beautiful is that which represents in finished and 
individual traits, the eternal and infinite beauty of 
human nature. 

The savant alone has the right to admire. Not 
only do criticism and sestheticisin, considered as 
opposed to one another, not exclude one another, but 
they are inseparable. Everything is at the same time 
admirable and susceptible of being criticized, and he 
only who knows how to admire, knows how to criti- 
cize. How, for instance can a man understand the 
beauties of Homer unless he be a savant, unless he 
know antiquity, unless he have the sense of primeval 
things ? What do we generally admire in those 
ancient poems ? Some small instances of great 
simplicity, some traits that raise a smile ; not that 
which is truly admirable, the picture of an age of 
humanity in its inimitable truth. The admiration 
of Chateaubriand is only therefore so often at fault 
because the aesthetic sense with which he was so 
eminently gifted was not based upon solid learning 
(133). 

Hence, in the actual condition of the human in- 
tellect it is by labours in the direction of scientific 
philosophy that we may hope to add to the domain 
of already acquired ideas. When we reflect upon 
the roles in the history of human intellect enacted 
by men like Erasmus, Bayle, Wolf, Niebuhr, Strauss, 
when we reflect upon the ideas they have put into 
circulation, and the advent of which they accelerated 
one feels surprised that the name of philosopher, so 



The Future of Science. 277 

lavishly bestowed upon obscure pedants, cannot be 
applied to such men. I am aware that the results 
of the higher sciences are a long while in becoming 
current. Of the immense labours already accom- 
plished by modern students of Indian literature, only 
a very few have as yet become common property. A 
numberless hive of learned philologists has produced 
a complete reformation in biblical exegesis in Ger- 
many without France being the wiser, as yet, with 
regard to a single word of their works. Still there 
are secret canals for science as well as for philosophy 
by means of which results do filter through. The 
ideas of Wolf on the epio or rather those to which 
he has led have become public property. The grand 
pantheistic poesy of Goethe, of Victor Hugo, of 
Lamartine implies an acquaintance with the whole 
of the labours of modern criticism, the final upshot 
of which is literary pantheism. I can scarcely 
imagine that M. Hugo has read Heyne, Wolf, William 
Jones, still his poesy would breed that supposition. 
The day comes when the results of science fill the 
air, if I may be allowed the expression, and affect 
the general formation of literature. M. Fauriel was 
only a critical savant ; the gift of artistic production 
was almost denied to him ; nevertheless, there are 
few men who have wielded so profound an influence 
on productive literature. 

But the mines of the past are still very far from 
having yielded all the treasures they contain. The 
task of modern scholarship will only be accomplished 
then when all the facets of humanity, that is, all the 
nations shall have been explored definitely, when China, 
Judaaa, Egypt shall have been restored to us in their 
primeval aspects, when we shall have finally arrived 
at the perfect understanding of the whole of human 
development. Then, and then only the reign of 
criticism will be inaugurated. For criticism will only 
proceed with perfect surety when the field of uni- 
versal comparison shall be thrown open to it. Com- 
parison is the great instrument of criticism. The 



278 The Future of Science. 

seventeenth century was ignorant of criticism, be- 
cause the comparison of the different facets of the 
human intellect was impossible to it. Herodotus 
and Livy must have been considered serious his- 
torians ; Homer must have passed muster as an in- 
dividual poet, previous to the comparative study of 
literatures having revealed the very delicate facts 
connected with mythism, primitive legend and apo- 
cryphism. If the seventeenth century had been 
acquainted, like ourselves, with India, Persia and 
ancient Germania, it would not have admitted in 
so ponderous a fashion the fables of the Greek and 
Eoman origins. Bossuet, whose claim to eminence 
rests upon the fact of having represented in a mar- 
vellous abridgment the whole of the seventeenth 
century, its grandeur as well as its weakness, would 
he have brought to bear so detestably critical a 
method on his exegesis, if instead of having derived 
his Biblical education from Saint- Augustine, he had 
got it from Eichhorn and Von Wette (134) ? 

People are not inoculated with the critical sense 
in an hour ; he who has not cultivated it by means 
of a protracted scientific and intellectual training 
will always find arguments to oppose to the most 
delicate inductions. The theses of refined criticism 
are not of the kind that are demonstrated in a few 
minutes and on which one can force the ignorant 
adversary or the one determined not to fall in with 
the views proposed to him. If there be myths on the 
face of them among the works of the human intellect, 
they are assuredly the first pages of Boman history, 
the story of the tower of Babel, of Lot's wife, of 
Samson ; if there be a thoroughly characteristic 
historical romance, it is that of Xenophon ; if there 
be a historian story-teller, it is Herodotus. Still, it 
would be so much time wasted to endeavour to per- 
suade to that effect those who decline to take that 
view. To elevate and to cultivate the minds of the 
majority, to popularize the great results of science, 
these are the only means of spreading the understand- 



The Future of Science. 279 



ing and acceptance of the new ideas of criticism. 
It is science, it is philology, it is the vast perception 
and comparison of things, it is, in short, the modern 
spirit, that converts. We may leave to mediocre 
intellects the satisfaction of believing themselves 
invincible in their ponderous arguments. We should 
not as much as try to refute them. The results of 
criticism cannot be proved, they must be perceived, 
to understand them requires long training and a 
thorough culture of the perception of the finesse of 
things. It is impossible to convince the man who 
obstinately rejects them, just as it is impossible to 
prove the existence of microscopic animalculae to 
the man who refuses to make use of a microscope. 
Determined to shut their eyes to delicate considera- 
tions, to take count of no shades whatsoever, they 
fling their everlasting " prove to us that it is im- 
possible," at your head. (There are so few things 
that are impossible.) The critic will leave them to 
enjoy their triumph by themselves and abstain from 
discussing with narrow intellects, determined to 
remain such, he will pursue his road, supported by 
the thousands of inductions which the universal 
study of things will cause to spring forth from all 
parts and which so powerfully converge towards the 
rationalistic point of view. Obstinate denial cannot 
be grappled with ; in no matter what order of things 
is it possible to make a man see who is determined 
not to see. It is moreover inflicting a wrong upon 
the results of criticism to clothe them in that heavy 
syllogistic form in which the mediocre intellects 
excel, and which delicate considerations could never 
assume. 

An instance in point. The four canonical Gospels 
often report the same fact with very considerable 
variations of circumstances. These are easily ac- 
counted for by natural hypothesis for we have no 
right to be more exacting with regard to the Grospela 
than villi regard to other historical or legendary 
narratives which often present more startling contra- 



280 The Future of Science. 

dictions. But it would appear that this constitutes 
an altogether unanswerable objection against those 
who think it incumbent to see in each of these 
narratives a history literally true and exact in the 
most minute details. This is, however, not the 
case. For if the circumstances are only different 
and not absolutely irreconcilable, they will say that 
one of the texts has preserved details omitted by the 
others and they will endeavour to make the various 
circumstances meet at the risk of concocting the 
most grotesque narrative out of them. If the cir- 
cumstances are decidedly contradictory, they will 
aver that the fact narrated occurred two or three 
times, albeit that in the eyes of sound criticism 
the narrators had the same event in view. Hence, 
the narratives of John and the synoptics (by which 
collective name are meant Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke) of the last entry of Jesus into Jerusalem 
being irreconcilable, the sticklers for harmony suppose 
that he came thither twice, with scarcely an interval 
between the two occurrences. Similarly, the three 
denials of Peter being told differently by the four 
Evangelists constitute in the opinion of those critics 
eight or nine different denials, while Jesus predicted 
that he would deny him only thrice. The circum- 
stances attending the Eesurrection give rise to 
analogous difficulties, to which they oppose similar 
solutions. What is there to be said about such an 
explanation ? That it is metaphysically impossible ? 
No. It will always be impossible to silence the man 
who will obstinately maintain it ; but it will always 
be rejected by whosoever is gifted with more or less 
critical education as contrary to all the laws of logical 
hermeneutics, especially if it is often repeated. There 
is no difficulty of which one cannot get rid by some 
subtle argument, and in reality, a subtle argument 
may sometimes be a true one. But there is no possi- 
bility of a hundred subtleties being true at the same 
time. We may say the same with regard to the 
" non-suit " opposed by certain exegetists to what 



The Future of Science. 281 

they term negative argument, that is, to the induc- 
tions drawn from the silence or absence of texts. 
For instance ; because .the most ancient of histories 
of the Jews settled in Palestine offers no trace of 
the accomplishment of the Mosaic prescriptions, the 
rationalistic critic concludes from it that these pre- 
scriptions did, as yet, not exist. " How do you 
know," says the orthodox student, " but what they 
may have existed without their being mentioned?" 
The romance of An tar and the Moallacats does hot 
lead us to suppose the existence of any judiciary 
institution, of any penalty whatsoever among the 
Arabs, before the advent of Islamism. " How do you 
know but what they may have had a jury without it 
being mentioned ? " To cope with such criticism, 
we should want a text conceived as follows ; " The 
Arabs at that period had no jury ; " which text, I 
admit, it would be difficult to find. You may as well 
require a similar text to prove that artillery was not 
known in Homeric times, and in general, for all the 
results of criticism expressed in negative form. 

This impossibility of imposing his results and of 
silencing his adversaries may at first make the critic 
impatient and goad him into entering that coarse 
arena. That would be an unpardonable error. For 
many long years to come still the critic will be a 
solitary creature and ought to confine himself to 
merely regretting that the necessary education to 
understand him should be confined to so small a 
circle. How can it be otherwise, when the first 
instruction received in childhood and which is often 
the only philosophical doctrine of life, is the very 
negation of criticism ? Poetical and vague super- 
stition is gross and nothing else. If the critical 
spirit is much more wide-spread in Northern Germany 
than in France, the cause lies no doubt in the differ- 
ence of religious instruction, with us positive and 
hard, with them not hard and fast and purely human, 



282 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

I wonder whether I have succeeded in making people 
understand the possibility of a scientific philosophy 
which would no longer be a system of vain and 
empty speculation, aiming at no real object, of 
a science which would no longer be dry, barren, 
exclusive, but which in becoming complete, would 
become religious and poetical ? There is no word to 
express that intellectual condition in which all the 
elements of nature would be blended into one superior 
harmony, and which, when realized in a human 
being, would constitute the perfect man. I am 
inclined to call it synthesis, in the special sense which 
I will explain. 

Just as the simplest fact of the human understand- 
ing as applied to a complex object is composed of 
three actions; (1) a general and confused view of 
the whole ; (2) a distinct and analytical view of the 
parts ; (3) a synthetical recomposition of the whole 
with the knowledge one possesses of the parts ; so 
the human intellect, in its march, traverses three 
conditions which may be defined under the three 
names of syncretism, analysis, synthesis, and which 
correspond with these three phases of the under- 
standing. 

The first age of the human intellect which we too 
often fancy to have been that of simplicity, was that 
of complexity and confusion. We are too easily 
persuaded that the simplicity which we conceive to 
be logically anterior to complexity is also chrono- 



The Future of Science. 283 

logically anterior to it ; as if that which, in regard to 
our analytical processes is the simpler, ought to have 
come into existence before the whole of which it is 
a part. The language of the child, apparently more 
simple, is in fact more comprehensive and more 
closely knit together that that which explains word 
for word the most carefully analyzed thought of ripe 
age. The most profound linguists have been sur- 
prised to find at the origin and among the peoples 
we call children rich and complicated languages. 
The primitive man has not the faculty of division, he 
sees things in their natural state ; that is, organically 
and in the plenitude of life (135). Nothing is abstract 
to him, for abstraction means life piecemeal ; every- 
thing is concrete and alive. The power of dis- 
tinguishing is not given to man at his origin, the 
first view is a general one, comprehensive, but ob- 
scure and incorrect ; everything is huddled together 
without distinction. Like the beings who are meant 
to be perpetuated, the human intellect was, from its 
initial moments, complete, though not developed ; 
nothing has been added since, but everything has 
been unfolded in its natural proportions, everything 
has been put in its proper place. Hence, the extreme 
complexity of the primitive works of the human 
intellect. Everything was contained in a single 
work, all the elements of humanity were gathered 
into one unity, which was undoubtedly very far 
removed from modern clearness, but which, it must 
be admitted, was incomparably majestic. The sacred 
book is the expression of that first condition of the 
human intellect. Let us take the sacred books of 
ancient peoples and what do we find in them ? The 
whole of the supra-sensitive life, the whole of a 
nation's soul; her poesy; her heroic recollections; 
her legislation, her politics, her code of morals ; her 
history, her philosophy and science ; in short, her 
religion. For the whole of this first development is 
wrought in a religious form. The religion, the sacred 
book of primitive peoples, is the syncretic accumu- 



284 The Future of Science. 

lation of all the human elements of the nation. 
Everything is there in a confused but withal beauti- 
ful unity. Hence arises the lofty placidity of those 
admirable works ; antithesis, contention, distinctions 
being banished from them, harmony and peace reign 
supreme without ever being disturbed. To struggle 
is the characteristic of the state of analysis. How 
could religion and philosophy, poesy and science, 
morality and politics have contended in those grand 
primitive works, seeiug that they repose side by side 
on the same page, often in the same line ? The 
religion was the philosophy, the poesy was the science, 
the legislation was the morality; the whole of 
humanity was condensed in each of its acts, or rather 
the power of humanity was emitted complete in each 
of its efforts. 

Therein lies the secret of the incomparable beauty 
of these primitive books, which are still the most 
adequate representations of complete humanity. It 
is idle- to look specially for science in them; the 
science of our time is unquestionably better than 
that which they contain. It is idle, too, to look for 
philosophy in them, for we are beyond doubt better 
analysts. It is, again, equally idle to look in them 
for legislation and public law ; for the rulers of our 
day are better informed, and that is not saying much. 
But what we do find in them is " simultaneous 
humanity," the grand harmony of human nature, 
the likeness of our glowing youth. Hence, also, is 
derived the superb poesy of those primitive types 
in which was incarnated the doctrine of those demi- 
gods who stand as religious ancestors to all nations 
— Orpheus, Thoth, Moses, Zoroaster, Vyasa and 
Fohi, who are at once savants, poets, legislators, 
social organizers, and, summing up all these qualities, 
priests and mystagogues. These admirable types 
still lasted for some time in the early ages of 
analytical reflection, producing those primitive 
"sages" who, though something more than mysta- 
gogues, are not quite philosophers, and who have 



The Future of Science. 285 

also their legend (a fabulous biography), though one 
not so well formed as that of the initiators (a pure 
myth). Such are Confucius, Lao-Tseu, Solomon, 
Locman, Pythagoras. Empedocles, who form a 
connecting link with the early philosophers by means 
of the still more refined types of Solon, Zaleucus, 
Numa, etc. 

Such is human intelligence in the primitive ages. 
It has its beauty, which our timid analysis cannot 
rival. It is the divine life, of childhood, during 
which God reveals Himself so closely to those who 
know how to adore. I admire not less than M. de 
Maistre does this ancient wisdom, wearing the crown 
of the sage and the priestly robe. I regret its loss, 
but I do not, on that account, blame the ages 
devoted to the toilsome work of analysis, which, 
inferior as they are in certain respects, represent, 
after all, a necessary progress of the human mind. 

The human mind, in fact, cannot remain steadfast 
in this primitive unity. Thought, when applied 
more closely to objects, recognizes their complexity 
and the necessity of studying them piecemeal. 
Primitive thought could see only one world; thought 
in its second stage of years perceives a thousand 
worlds, or rather sees a world in all things. Its gaze, 
instead of becoming more extensive, pierces and 
plunges downward; instead of taking a horizontal 
direction, it extends vertically ; .instead of losing 
itself in a boundless horizon, it settles earthwards 
and upon itself. It is the age of partial sight, 
of exactitude, of precision, of the making of dis- 
tinctions ; instead of creation we have analysis. - 
Thought becomes broken up and divided. The 
primitive style possessed neither the division of 
phrases nor the division of words. Analytical style 
calls to its assistance a complicated mode of punctua- 
tion, intended to dissect the different members. 
There are poets, savants, moralists, philosophers, 
politicians ; there are even still theologians and 
priests (136). This is singular, for as theology and 



286 The Future of Science. 

sacerdotalism are the complete form of primitive 
development, one would imagine that they would 
have disappeared with it. So they would have done 
if humanity advanced with perfect harmony and pre- 
cision. As such is not the case, theology and sacer- 
dotalism survive that which should have been mortal 
to them ; they remain one specialty among many 
others. This is a contradiction in terms, for how are 
you to make a specialty of that which is only some- 
thing upon condition of being everything ? But as 
analytical science imposes itself as a necessity, the 
timid endeavour to conciliate this necessity with the 
remains of institutions which are opposed to analysis, 
and they fancy that they succeed in maintaining the 
two things face to face. I repeat that if theology was 
worth preserving, it would necessarily take the prece- 
dence of all else, and all other things would only be 
of importance by comparison with their bearing on 
it. The theological point of view is in contradiction 
with the analytical point of view ; the analytical 
age ought to be atheistic and irreligious. But 
humanity, fortunately, prefers contradicting itself to 
leaving without sustenance one of the essential 
cravings of its being. 

It is not of his own choice, it is by the fatality of 
his nature, that man thus quits the delights of his 
primitive garden, so smiling and so full of romance, 
to plunge into the quicksands of critique and science. 
One may regret these early attractions, just as, in the 
prime of life, one often regrets the dreams and joys of 
childhood; but one must go manfully onward) and, 
instead of casting longing looks behind, follow the 
hard path which will lead, no doubt, to a state of things 
a thousand times better. Even if the analytical 
condition which we are traversing were distinctly 
inferior to the primitive state (and it is only so in 
certain particulars), analysis would, nevertheless, 
represent a more advanced stage than syncretism, 
because it is an intermediate stage which must be 
gone through in order to reach a higher state. True 



The Future of Science. 287 

progress sometimes seems a retrogression and then 
a return. The introgradations of humanity are like 
those of the planets. Viewed from earth, they are 
retrogradations ; but in reality they are not so- The 
retrogradation appears as such only to the gaze of 
those whose sight embraces but a limited portion 
of the curve. Whether circular or spiral, as Goethe 
would have it, the march of humanity is along a line 
the two extremities of which meet. A vessel 
navigating along the western and wild coast of the 
United States in order to reach the eastern and 
civilized coast, would, to all appearances, be nearer 
its destination when starting than when it was being 
assailed by the storms and snows of Cape Horn. 
And yet, looking at the reality, this vessel would be 
nearer its destination when off Cape Horn than it 
was upon the banks of the Oregon. This great 
circuit was unavoidable. In the same way, the 
human mind will have had to traverse deserts in 
order to reach the promised land. 

Analysis is war. In the primitive synthesis, with 
men's minds scarcely differing, harmony was a very 
simple matter. But in the state of individualism, 
liberty is read} T to take umbrage ; each person is bent 
upon saying what he thinks fit and cannot see why 
he should subject his will and thought to those of 
others. Analysis is the revolution and the negation 
of the one, absolute law. Those who dream of peace 
in this state dream of death. Resolution is a neces- 
sary element in it, and, whatever one may do, it will 
take its course. Peace is not the lot of the analytical 
state, and the analytical state is necessary for the 
progress of human intelligence. Peace will only re- 
* appear with the great synthesis, upon the day when 
men shall once again meet in the fond embrace of 
reason and of human nature properly cultivated. 
While this necessary transition is in progress, any- 
thing like a general association is impossible. The 
individual existence of each is too strong ; individu- 
alities so marked in their characteristics will not 



The Future of Science. 



allow themselves to be gathered up in sheaves. It 
would be impossible in the present day to create 
those great religious unities, those vast agglomera- 
tions of souls into the one doctrine called religious, 
or those military orders of the Middle Ages in which 
so many individualities quite insignificant in them- 
selves became fused in view of one common aim. It 
is easy to bind up the ears when they have been 
cut or knocked off by the storm, but not so long as 
they are growiDg. To allow oneself to become thus 
absorbed in a great corporation, through which oue 
lives, and with the fame or prosperity of which one 
becomes identified, one must have little individuality, 
few views of one's own, simply a great fund of unre- 
flecting energy ready to place at the service of a great 
common idea. Beflection would be insufficient to 
bring about the unity ; diversity is the essential 
characteristic of the philosophical epochs ; any great 
dogmatic foundation is impossible in them. The 
primitive state was the age of solidarity. Crime 
even was not regarded as individual ; the substitu- 
tion of the innocent for the guilty appeared quite 
natural ; a misdeed was transmitted and became 
hereditary. In the age of reflection, on the contrary, 
such dogmas seem absurd ; each man answers only 
for himself, each man is his own artificer. With us, 
all knowledge is antithetical ; in face of good we see 
evil ; in face of the beautiful the ugly ; when we 
make an affirmation, we deny, we see the objection, 
we harden ourselves, we argue. In the primitive 
age, on the contrary, an affirmation was plain and 
simple, with no going back upon it. 

Assuredly, if analysis had no ulterior aim, it would 
be distinctly inferior to the primitive syncretism. 
For the latter seized the whole life, whereas analysis 
does not grasp it. But analysis is the necessary 
condition of the true synthesis ; this diversity will 
anew dissolve itself into unity ; perfect science is 
only possible upon condition of its being first of all 
based upon analysis and a clear view of the parts. 



The Future of Science. 289 

The conditions of science are for humanity the same 
as they are for the individual ; the individual only 
knows thoroughly the whole of which he also knows 
the separate elements one hy one, as also the part 
which these separate elements play on the whole. 
Humanity will not be learned until the day that 
science has explored every corner and put the living 
being together again after having taken him to pieces. 
Do not, therefore, sneer at the savant who sinks 
deeper and deeper into this slough. No doubt, if 
this toilsome operation was an end in itself, science 
would be only an ungrateful and degrading pursuit. 
But all is noble in view of the grand definite science, 
wherein poetry, religion, science and morality will 
find their lost harmony in complete reflection. The 
primitive age was religious but not scientific ; the 
later age will be at once religions and scientific. 
Then there will be once more an Orpheus and a 
Trismegistos, not to sing to peoples in a state of 
childhood their fanciful dreams, but to teach a 
humanity grown wise the marvels of reality. Then 
there will be once more sages, poets and organizers, 
legislators and priests, not to govern humanity in 
the name of a vague instiuct, but to lead it rationally 
into its paths, which are those of perfection. Then 
will appear, once more, superb types of human 
character, which will recall the marvels of the early 
ages. Such a state will seem a return to the primi- 
tive age ; but between the two there will be the 
abyss of analysis ; there will have been centuries of 
patient and attentive study ; there will be the possi- 
bility, in embracing the whole, to gain simultaneously 
consciousness of the parts. No two things can be 
more like each other than syncretism and sjmthesis ; 
nothing can in reality be more diverse, for synthesis 
virtually preserves within itself all analytical process ; 
it assumes it and builds itself thereupon. All the 
Dhases of humanity are, therefore, good, seeing that 
they tend to what is perfect ; the only thing is that 
they may perhaps be incomplete, because humanity 

u 



290 The Future of Science. 

accomplishes its work bit by bit, and draws its 
sketches one after the other, all in view of the grand 
final tableau and of the ulterior epoch, in which, 
after having traversed syncretism and analysis, it 
will complete the circle with synthesis. A little 
reflection may have rendered impossible the marvel- 
lous creations of instinct ; but complete, reflection 
will bring to life again the same works with a superior 
degree of clearness and of determination. 

Analysis is powerless to create. A simple synthesist, 
devoid of critique, has more power to change the face 
of the world and to make proselytes than the stern 
and inaccessible philosopher. It is a great misfortune 
to have discovered within oneself the springs of the 
soul ; for one is always fearful of becoming self- 
duped ; one regards with suspicion one's feelings, 
joys and instincts. The simple-minded marches 
straight ahead, with a determined step and with 
unconquered energy. The age in which criticism is 
the most advanced is by no means the one best able 
to realize the beautiful. Germany is the only country 
in which literature allows itself to be influenced by 
the preconceived theories of criticism. Each new 
growth of literary production is brought about in that 
country by a new system of aesthetics ; to which may 
be attributed so much of what is artificial and affected 
in its literature. The defect of the intellectual de- 
velopment of Germany is the abuse of reflection : 
I mean to say, the deliberate and intentional appli- 
cation to spontaneous production of the laws which 
are recognized in the anterior phases of thought. 
The great result of the historical critique of the 
nineteenth century, as applied to the history of the 
human intelligence, is to have recognized the neces- 
sary ebb and flow of the systems, to have got a dim 
idea of some of the laws according to which they are 
piled the one upon the other, and the way in which 
they incessantly oscillate towards the truth, when 
they follow their natural course. This is a specula- 
tive truth of the first order, but one which becomes 



The Future of Science. 291 

very dangerous when put into application. For to 
conclude from this principle "The ulterior system 
is always the best," that any superficial or frivolous 
person who may happen to utter some drivel after 
a man of genius is preferable to the latter because he 
is chronologically posterior to him, this is, in sooth, 
to give mediocrity too much the best of it. And yet 
this is what too often happens in Germany. After 
a. great philosophical or critical work has appeared, 
it is certain that a whole swarm of " advanced 
thinkers," so-called, will spring up, with the pre- 
tension of outvying it, when in reality they often 
merely contradict it. I cannot too strongly iusist 
that the law of the progress of systems is only 
applicable when their production is perfectly spon- 
taneous, and when their authors, without thinking 
of anticipating each other, concentrate their atten- 
tion only on the intrinsic and objective consideration 
of things. To neglect this important condition is to 
hand over the development of the human intelligence 
to chance or to the grotesque claims of a few vain 
and presumptuous individuals (137). 

Criticism does not understand the art of assimila- 
tion. Dogmatic eclecticism is only possible upon 
the condition of not being too closely tied down. 
Our attempts to effect a fusion between doctrines 
fail because we know them too well. The early 
Christians, the Alexandrians, the Arabs, the men of 
the Middle Ages and Mahomet were able to practise 
an eclecticism far more powerful than ours, because 
it was much more in the rough. They did not 
possess such exact knowledge as we do, and they had 
less of criticism ; these elements they mixed up, 
without knowing whence they came. They amalga- 
mated without scruple, mixing up the whole without 
any particular regard to details, putting in their 
originality without being aware they were doing so. 
Criticism, upon the contrary, cannot digest ; the 
morsels remain whole ; so that it is easy to see the 
difference. The dogma of the Divinity would never 



292 The Future of Science. 

have been formed if the Christian doctors had taken 
into account the thousand variations of detail which 
we see. Modern eclecticism is excellent as a prin- 
ciple of criticism, but barren as an attempt at 
dogmatic fusion ; it will never be anything more 
than a piece of marqueteiy work; a juxtaposition of 
distinct pieces. In former times, a new spirit or new 
institutions were formed by a thorough mixture of 
different principles, just as our coarsest aliments are 
transformed by cooking. The institutions or dogmas 
of the past were taken as they came, and arranged 
according to individual fancy. The Middle Ages 
made for themselves an empire out of ancient and 
very inaccurate recollections. If the Middle Ages 
had been as familiar with history as we are, they 
would not have indulged in this pretty fancy. The 
counter-sense (contresens) had much to do with these 
strange creations, and I hope some day to show the 
part it played in the formation of our most essential 
dogmas ; or rather the uncritical tendency sought to 
discover its aim in the past, and, in order to do so, 
fashioned the past at its fancy. This, assuredly, is a 
rude kind of science, if ever there was one. Never- 
theless, it created more than ours has, thanks to its 
very rudeness. Clear and delicate vision serves only 
to draw distinctions ; analysis can never be more 
than mere analysis. 

And yet analysis is, in its way, a progress. In 
syncretism, all the elements were jumbled together 
without that precise distinction which characterizes 
analysis ; without that splendid unity which results 
from perfect synthesis. It is only in the second 
degree that the parts begin to outline themselves 
clearly, and this is done, it must be confessed, at the 
cost of that unity of which the primitive state offered 
at all events the outward show. Then it is the 
multiplicity, the division which predominate until 
synthesis, taking possession of these isolated parts — 
which having had a separate existence, are hence- 
forth conscious of the fact — fuses them anew in a 
superior unity. 



The Future of Science. 293 

In reality, this great law is not solely the law of 
human intelligence (138). Evolution from a primi- 
tive and syncretic germ by the analysis of its 
members, and fresh unity resulting from this analysis, 
such is the law of all that has life. A germ is 
deposited, containing in posse, without distinction, 
all that the being will some day become ; the germ 
develops, the forms become constituted in their 
regular proportions, that which was potential be- 
comes a fact ; but nothing is created, nothing is 
added. I have often successfully used the following 
comparison to make this view understood. Let us 
imagine a mass of homogeneous hemp, drawn out in 
separate strands, the mass will represent syncretism, 
in which all instincts have a confused existence ; the 
strands will represent analysis. If we imagine the 
strands, while remaining distinct, to be afterwards 
interlaced so as to form a rope, we have the 
synthesis, which differs from the primitive syn- 
cretism, insomuch as that the individualities, while 
knotted together in unity, remain distinct. In an 
hypothesis which I am far from assuming as dog- 
matically certain, but merely as a striking illustra- 
tion of the system of things, the law of God would 
not be very different from this. Primitive unity was 
without life, for life can only exist upon the condition 
of analysis and of the opposition of the parts. The 
being was as if he did not exis.t ; for nothing was 
distinct in him ; the whole was without individual- 
ization or separate existence. Life only began when 
the obscure and confused unity was developed in 
multiplicity and became the universe. But the 
universe, again, is not the complete form ; the unity 
is not sufficiently distinct in it. The return to unity 
operates in it by the intelligence, for the intelligence 
is merely the unique outcome of a certain number of 
multiple elements. The history of the being will 
only be complete when multiplicity is entirely con- 
verted into unity, and when from everything that 
exists shall issue an unique resultant which will be 



294 The Future of Science. 

God, just as in man, the soul is the resultant of all 
the elements which compose it. God will then 
be the soul of the universe, and the universe will be 
the body of God, and life will be complete ; for all 
the parts of that which is will have lived apart 
and will be ripe for unity. The circle will then be 
closed, and the being, after having traversed ' the 
multiple, will anew rest in the unity. But why, it 
may be asked, emerge therefrom to re-enter it again? 
What good will the voyage athwart the multiple 
have done ? The good will be that all will have 
lived its own life, and that thus analysis will have 
been introduced into the unity. For life is not 
absolute unity or multiplicity; it is multiplicity in 
unity, or rather multiplicity resolving itself into 
unity (139). 

The perfection of life in the animal is in direct 
ratio to the distinctiveness of its organs. The lower 
animal, in appearance more homogeneous, is, in 
reality, inferior to the vertebrated animal, because 
a grand central existence is the outcome, in the 
latter, of several perfectly distinct elements. France 
is the first among nations, because she is the unique 
concert resulting from an infinity of different sounds. 
The perfection of humanity will not be the extinction, 
but the harmony of nationalities ; nationalities con- 
tinue to increase rather than diminish in strength ; 
to destroy a nationality is to destroy a sound 
in humanity. "Genius," writes Michelet, "is only 
genius in that it is at once simple and analytical, at 
once child and full-grown man and woman, barbarian 
and civilized (140)." In the same way, science 
will only be perfect when it is at once analytical 
and synthetical ; when exclusively analytical, it is 
narrow, dry and scant)^ ; when exclusively syn- 
thetical, it is chimerical and gratuitous. Man will 
only really have knowledge when, while affirming the 
general law, he has a clear view of all the detailed 
tacts which it implies. 

All the special sciences start by the affirmation of 



The Future of Science. 295 

unity, and only begin to distinguish when analysis 
has revealed numerous differences where before had 
been visible nothing but uniformity. Read the 
Scottish psychologists, and you will find at each 
page that the primary rule of the philosophical 
method is to maintain distinct that which is distinct, 
not to anticipate facts by a hurried reduction to 
unity, not to recoil before the multiplicity of causes. 
Nothing can be better, but upon the condition that, 
by an ulterior outlook, one makes sure -that this 
reduction to unity, which is not yet ripe, will one 
day be effected. It would, assuredly, be very strange 
that there should be in nature sixty-one simple 
bodies, neither more nor less ; that there should b3 in 
man eight or ten faculties, neither more nor Jess. 
Unity is at the foundation of things, but science 
must wait for its appearance, while still feeling 
assured that it will appear. It is an error to reproach 
science with thus reposing in diversity, but science, 
upon the other hand, would be wrong if it did not 
make its reservations and recognize this temporary 
diversity as being destined to disappear some day 
after a deeper investigation of nature. 

The present state is open to criticism and is incom- 
plete. True science, the complete and felt science, 
will be for the future, if civilization is not once again 
arrested in its march by blind superstition and the 
invasion of barbarism, in one form or another. But, 
whatever happens, even should a Renaissance become 
necessary, it is unquestionable that it would take 
place, that the barbarians would look to us as to the 
ancients to advance further than we have done, and 
to obtain in their turn new points of view. Then 
pity will be felt for us, the men of the age of analysis, 
reduced to see nothing but a corner of things ; but 
we shall be honoured for having preferred humanity 
to ourselves, for having deprived ourselves of the 
pleasure of general results, in order to put the future 
in the position of being able to deduce them with 
certainty, very different from those egotistical 



296 The Future of Science. 



thinkers of the early ages, who endeavoured to im- 
provise for themselves a system of things rather than 
to gather for the future the elements of the solution. 
Our method is par excellence the disinterested one ; 
we do not labour for ourselves ; we are willing to be 
ignorant in order that the future may have know- 
ledge ; we labour for humanity. 

This patient and severe method seems to me to be 
suited to France, which, of all countries, has prac- 
tised with the most firmness the positive method, 
but which is also the one in which abstruse specula- 
tion has been the most barren. Without accepting 
in all its fulness the reproach which Germany levels 
at us, of understanding absolutely nothing in religion 
or in metaphysics, I admit that the religious sense 
is a very weak one in France, and it is precisely on 
that account that we attach more importance than 
others, in religion, to narrow formulas which exclude 
altogether the ideal. This is why there will never 
in France be any medium between the strictest 
Catholicism and incredulity ; this is why it is so 
difficult to make people understand that, if you are 
not a Catholic, you are not necessarily a Voltairian. 
The metaphysical speculations of the French school 
(excepting, perhaps, Malebranche) have always been 
paltry and timid. The true French philosophy is 
the scientific philosophy of a Dalembert, a Cuvier, 
or a Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Theological development 
has been quite null in France ; there is no country 
in Europe where religious thought has been less 
active, Strange to say, the very men who have 
been so quiet, so delicate, so swift to note the 
slightest shades of difference in real life are regular 
simpletons in metaphysics, and accept without 
question enormities which to the critical sense are 
simply revolting. They feel this, and do not concern 
themselves with them. But as the need for a 
religion is one common to humanity, they find it 
convenient to take ready made the system which lies 
handy, without stopping to consider whether it is 



The Future of Science. 297 



acceptable (141). Eeligion has always in France 
been a sort of separate wheel, a stereotyped form, 
like " Louis by the grace of God," having no con- 
nection with the remainder and which is not read ; 
a dead letter. Our religious wars are in reality only 
civil or party wars. If France had possessed a 
stronger religious sentiment, she would have become 
Protestant, like Germany. But not having the 
sentiment of the theological movement, she saw no 
half-way house between a given system and the dis- 
dainful repudiation of this system. France is in 
religion what the East is in politics. The East can 
imagine no other government than an absolute one. 
Only, when absolutism becomes intolerable, the 
sovereign is stabbed. This is the only political 
tempering understood there. France is the most 
orthodox country in the world, for it is the least 
religious and the most positive country. The 
Franklin type of man, the man of the present day 
who is as atheistic as possible, is often the one most 
closely attached to formulae. If clever people look 
into the matter at all closely, they either fall back 
with characteristic facility upon our incompetency 
to judge matters of this kind, or else they fairly 
laugh at us. There is among unbelievers even, in 
France, a certain fund of Catholicism. The pure 
ideal religion, which, in Germany, has so many 
proselytes, is quite unknown with us (142). A system 
ready made, which it is not necessary to understand 
and which spares us the pains of searching, that is 
what France requires in religion, because she quite 
understands that she has not the delicate perception 
of things of this kind. France pre-eminently repre- 
sents the analytical, revolutionary, profane and irre- 
ligious period of humanity ; and it is because of her 
very powerlessness in religion that she clings with 
this sceptical indifference to the formulae of the past. 
It may be that some day France, having accom- 
plished her task, will become an obstacle to the 
progress of humanity and disappear; for the parts 



298 The Future of Science. 



are quite distinct ; the man who has effected the 
analysis does not do the synthesis. To each his 
work, such is the law of history. France will have 
been the great revolutionary instrument, will she be 
equally powerful for religious re-edification ? The 
future will show, but, be this as it may, she has done 
enough for fame in having delineated one side of 



humanity. 



The Future of Science. 299 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Would to God that I could have succeeded in making 
clear to a few lofty minds that there is in the pure 
cultivation of human faculties and of the divine 
objects which they attain a religion as suave, as rich 
in delights, as the most venerable forms of worship. 
I have tasted in my childhood and early youth the 
purest joys of the believer, and I say from the bottom 
of my heart that these joys are nothing by comparison 
with what I have felt in the pure contemplation of 
the beautiful and the passionate search after truth. 
I wish to all my brethren who have remained orthodox 
a peace to be compared with that in which I live 
since my struggle is over and since the appeased 
storm has left me in the midst of this great pacific 
ocean, a sea without wind or shore, upon which one 
has no star but reason, no compass but one's own 
heart. 

A scruple, however, sometimes rises within me, 
and the idea which I have endeavoured to express in 
these pages would be incomplete if I did not offer 
the solution of it here. It is, in fact, the grand 
objection incessantly raised against rationalism ; and 
I am anxious to express my feelings upon this point. 
Science and humanism, I may be told, offer you 
sufficient religious sustenance. But can the religion 
be that of all the world ? Can the man of the people, 
bending beneath a never-ending toii, the limited 
intelligence, to which the secrets of a higher life 
must ever be a closed book, hope to have his part in 



300 The Future of Science. 

this worship of the perfect ? That if your religion 
is for a small minority, that if it excludes the poor 
and the humble, it is not the true one ; more than 
that, it is barbarous and immoral, inasmuch as it 
banishes from the kingdom of Heaven those who are 
already dispossessed of the joys of earth. 

These objections are all the stronger because I am 
the first to admit that science, to arrive at this 
degree in which it offers a religious and moral aliment 
to the soul, must elevate itself above the vulgar 
level, that ordinary scientific education is here quite 
insufficient, that you must have, in order to realize 
this idea, a life entirely devoted to study, a scientific 
asceticism which never falters and the most absolute 
renunciation of the pleasures, the business and the 
affairs of this world ; that not only the ignorant man 
is radically incapable of understanding a word of this 
system of life, but that even the immense majority 
of those who are looked upon as educated and culti- 
vated are absolutely incapable of attaining to it. 

Yes, I admit that rational and pure religion is only 
accessible to the small minority. The number of 
philosophers has been, as it were, imperceptible in 
humanity. The most modest of religions has had a 
thousand times as many followers and has had more 
influence upon the destinies of humanity than all the 
schools put together. Philosophy after our fashion 
presupposes a long period of culture and habits of 
thought which very few are capable of. I do not 
know whether it is possible anywhere in France out- 
side Paris to place oneself properly at this point of 
view, and I should be afraid of going too far if I said 
that there are now in the world two or three thou- 
sand persons capable of worshipping after this fashion. 
But the humble are not, on that account, excluded 
from the ideal. Their formulae, although inferior, 
suffice to make them lead a noble life, and the people 
more especially have in their grand instincts and' 
powerful spontaneousness an ample compensation 
for what is denied them in the way of science and 



Tlie Future of Science. 301 

reflection. Is he who can understand the preaching 
of a village Jocelyn, and these parables, 

Ou le maitre, ab^isse jusqu'an sens des humains, 
Faisait toucher le ciel aux plus petites mains, 

disinherited from the heavenly life? All men, by 
the sole fact of their participation in human nature, 
have their right to the ideal ; but it would be running 
counter to evidence to pretend that all are equally 
apt to taste the delights of it. While repeating with 
Michelet " Oh ! who will deliver me from the bond 
of inequality ! " while admitting that, in respect to 
intelligence, inequality is harder to bear for the 
privileged man than for the inferior, it must be said 
that this inequality is in the nature of things, and 
that the theological formula is in this particular 
perfectly true ; all men have sufficient grace to work 
out their own salvation; but all are not called to the 
same state of perfection. Mary has the better part 
which shall not be taken from her. What may be 
regarded as certain is that if humanity were as 
highly cultivated as we are, it would have the same 
religion as we have. 

If, therefore, you blame the philosopher for the 
exceptional excellence of his religion, you must also 
blame the man who seeks in the ascetic life a higher 
perfection for being called to an exceptional state. 
You must also reproach the man who cultivates his 
mind for breaking the vulgar line of humanity. It 
must be allowed, painful as the admission may be, 
that perfection, in the present state of society, is 
possible only to very few. Are we to conclude from 
this that perfection is bad and injurious to humanity? 
Assuredly not ; we need only regret that it is subject 
to such narrow conditions. It is intolerable pride 
on the part of the philosopher to imagine that he 
has the monopoly of the higher life ; it would be 
a very blameworthy piece of egotism for him to 
rejoice in his isolation and designedly to prolong 
the degradation of his fellow-men in order that he 



302 TJie Future of Science. 



might have no equals. But it cannot be imputed as 
a crime to him that he should raise himself above 
the common' level, and exclaim with St. Paul : Cupio 
omnes fieri qnalis et ego cum. Do not therefore con- 
tend that the inferiority of philosophy consists in 
its being accessible to the small minority; for this 
is, on the contrary, its chief title to glory. The only 
practical conclusion to be drawn from this melancholy 
truth is that one should labour to hasten the advent 
of the blessed day in which all men will have their 
place in the sunshine of intelligence and will be 
called to the true light of the children of Gocl. 

It Would be a very pleasant but very chimerical 
optimism to hope that this day is at hand. But it 
is the property of faith to hope against hope, and 
there is nothing, after all, which the past does not 
justify us in hoping from the future of humanity. 
For how different were the conditions of intellectual 
culture in the antiquity of Greece from what they 
are to-day. In the present day, science and philo- 
sophy are a profession. " One does not get credit 
with the world," says Pascal, "for understanding 
poetry if one has not hung out the poet's sign, nor 
for being clever at mathematics, if one has not dis- 
played that of the mathematician." In the noble 
ages of antiquity, a man was philosopher or poet, as 
one is an honest man in all situations of life. No 
practical interest, no official institution were 
necessary to stimulate the zeal for research or for 
the production of poetry. Spontaneous curiosity, 
the instinct of what was beautiful, sufficed. Am- 
monius Saccas, the founder of the highest and most 
learned philosophical school of antiquity, was a 
porter. Imagine a market porter of the present day 
creating in France an order of speculation analogous 
to the philosophy of Schelling or of Hegel. When 
I think of the noble people of Athens, where every 
one felt and lived the life of the nation, of this 
people which applauded Sophocles' plays, of this 
people which criticized Isocrates, of this people 



The Future of Science. 303 



where the women said : "This, then, is Demosthenes," 
of this people where a female vendor of herbs detected 
Theophrastus to be a stranger, where every one had 
been taught in the same gymnasia and had learnt 
the same songs, where every one knew Homer and 
understood him in the same sense, I cannot help 
feeling rather sore at our society being so profoundly 
divided into men of culture and barbarians. With 
the Greeks, all men had their share in the same 
souvenirs, all gloried in the same trophies (143), all 
had contemplated the same Minerva and the same 
Jupiter. What are Racine, Bossuet, Buffon and 
Flechier to our fellow-countrymen ? What do they 
know of the heroes of Louis XIV., of Conde and 
Turenne ? What meaning do Nordlingen and Fon- 
tenoy (144) convey to them ? The people in our day 
are disinherited from the intellectual life ; there is 
no literature for them. There was only one kind of 
taste at Athens — the taste of the people, good taste. 
With us there is the popular taste and the taste of men 
of refinement ; the distinguished kind and the petty 
kind. In order to appreciate our literature, a man 
must be well-read, a critic and more or less of a wit. 
The vulgar herd admires without knowing why, and 
does not venture upon a judgment of its own upon 
works which exceed the limits of its intelligence. 
Germany does not know what provincial taste is 
because she has no taste of the capital; antiquity 
had nothing of the weak and popular style because 
it had no aristocratic literature. 

I cannot conceive an elevated mind remaining 
indifferent to such a spectacle and not suffering at 
the sight of the greater part of humanity being 
excluded, from the domain which it possesses and 
which might so readily be divided. There are some 
people who do not understand happiness except as 
an exceptional favour to themselves, and who would 
not appreciate wealth, education and intelligence if 
they were the possession of all the world. These 
latter do not love perfection in itself, but relative 



304 The Future of Science. 

superiority; they are full of vanity arid egotism. 
For my own part, perfect happiness is, as I under- 
stand it, that all men should be perfect. I cannot 
understand how the opulent man can fully enjoy his 
opulence, while he is obliged to veil his face in 
presence of the misery of a portion of his fellow- 
creatures. My greatest sorrow is to reflect that all 
cannot share my happiness. There will only be 
happiness when all are equal, but there will only be 
equality when all are perfect. What pain for the 
savant and the thinker to find themselves, through 
their very excellence, isolated from humanity, haviug 
their world apart and their belief apart ! And yet you 
wonder that with this they are sometimes sad and 
solitary ! But even if they were in possession of the 
infinite, of absolute truth, they could not but be 
pained at possessing it alone, or fail to regret the 
commonplace dreams which they at least had in 
common with their fellow-men. There are souls 
which cannot endure this isolation, and which prefer 
attaching themselves to the weak rather than to 
stand out by themselves in humanity. I admire 
and like these men. ... At the same time, the 
savant cannot follow this course, even if he wished to 
do so, for what has been proved to him to be false is 
henceforward incapable of being accepted. The 
spectacle of the physical sufferings of the poor is, no 
doubt, a lamentable one, but I confess it does not 
come home to me so keenly as to see the immense 
majority of my fellow-men condemned to intellectual 
helotism, to see men similar to myself, possessing 
perhaps intellectual and moral faculties superior to 
my own, reduced to a state of brutal degradation, 
unfortunate passengers through life who are born, 
live and die without having for a moment lifted their 
eyes from the servile instrument which gives them 
their daily bread, without having for a single moment 
breathed in God. 

One of the commonplaces most frequently repeated 
by vulgar minds is this : To initiate the masses 



The Future of Science. 305 

devoid of fortune into the intellectual culture usually 
reserved for the higher classes of society is too often 
for them a source of pain and suffering. Their edu- 
cation will merely serve to make them feel the social 
want of proportion, and to render their condition in- 
tolerable. That is, I repeat, just the bourgeois view, 
which only envisages intellectual culture as a com- 
plement to worldly fortune, and not as a moral good. 
Yes, I admit that the simple are the happiest; but 
is that a reason for not raising oneself ? Yes, 
these poor creatures will be more unhappy when 
their eyes are opened. But it is not a question of 
being happy ; it is a question of being perfect. They 
are as well entitled as others to the nobility of suffer- 
ing. Eemember that the question at issue is true 
religion, the only thing which is serious and sacred. 

I can understand the most radical divergencies as to 
the best means of operating for the greatest good of 
humanity, but I do not understand that honest minds 
should differ as to the aim and substitute egotistical 
ends for the great divine end : perfection and life for 
all, Upon this first question, there are only two 
classes of men : the honest men who subordinate 
themselves to the great social end, and the immoral 
men who are resolved to get enjoyment, and who 
care little whether they do so at^the costj^ others.,. 
If it were~true that humanity was so constituted that 
there was nothing to be done for, the general good, 
if it were true that politics consisted in stifling the 
cries of the wretched and in looking with folded arms, 
upon evils as if they were without a remedy, nothing / 
could induce noble minds to endure life. If the 
world were thus constituted, we should have no 
alternative but to curse God and then commit suicide, j / 

It is not enough for the progress of human intelli- 
gence that a few isolated thinkers should reach very 
advanced posts, and that a few heads should shoot 
up like wild oats above the common level. Of what 
service is the most magnificent discovery if only a 
hundred persons or so are to profit by it ? How is 

x 



306 Tie Future of Science. 

humanity served if seven or eight persons have been 
able to perceive the true reason of things ? A result 
can only be regarded as acquired when it has entered 
into general circulation. Now the results of abstruse 
science are not of the kind which have simply to be 
enunciated. Mens' minds have to be raised up to 
them. It would be all very well for Kant and Hegel 
to be right ; their science, in the present condition 
of things, would be incapable of being communicated. 
Would this be their fault ? Not at all, but that of 
the barbarians who cannot understand them, or 
rather the fault of the society responsible for the 
existence of barbarians. A civilization is only really 
strong when it has a widely extended basis. i\.n- 
tiquity had thinkers almost as advanced as our own, 
and yet ancient civilization perished owing to its 
paucity, buried beneath the multitude of barbarians. 
It did not rest upon a sufficiently large number of 
men ; it disappeared not for want of intensity, but 
lor lack of extension. It is a matter of great urgency, 
I take it, to enlarge the whirl of humanity ; other- 
wise a few individuals might reach heaven while the 
mass is still dragging along upon the earth. A pro- 
gress of that kind would not be a genuine one and 
would be of no effect. 

If intellectual culture was merely a form of enjoy- 
ment, it would not be a cause of complaint that only 
a minority had a share in it, for man has no right to 
enjoyment. But from the moment that it is a religion, 
and the most perfect of religions, it becomes barbarous 
to deprive a single soul of it. Formerly, in the age 
of Christianity, that was not so revolting ; upon the 
contrary, the lot of the unfortunate and the simple was 
in one sense to be envied, inasmuch as they were nearer 
to the kingdom of God. But the charm has been 
broken and cannot be restored. The outcome of this 
is very shocking, for we see men condemned to suffer, 
without a single moral thought, without an elevated 
idea, without a noble sentiment, retained only by force 
like brutes in a cage. That, assuredly, is intolerable- 



The Future of Science. 307 



But what is to be done ? Are these beasts to be 
let loose upon men ? No, for humanity and civiliza- 
tion must be saved at any cost. Are the brutes to 
be kept under lock and key and well beaten when 
they offer resistance ? That is a horrible alternative. 
No, they must be made men of, they must be given 
their part in the delights of the ideal, they must be 
elevated, ennobled, made worthy of liberty. Till 
that is done, to preach liberty will be equivalent to 
preaching destruction ; it will be very much as if, 
out of respect for the right of bears and lions, one 
opened the bars of a menagerie. Until then, violent 
actions are necessary, and although to be condemned 
in the analytical appreciation of facts, they are., in 
effect, legitimate. The future will absolve them, as 
we absolve the great Revolution, while deploring its 
culpable acts and stigmatizing those who provoked 
them. 

But it is a waste of time to vex one's mind over 
these problems. They are in a speculative sense 
insoluble ; they will be solved by brute force. It is 
like reasoning upon the crater of a volcano, or at the 
foot of a dyke when the waters are rising. Humanity 
has many a time thus found itself arrested in its 
march like an army brought up short by some un- 
fathomable precipice. The shrewdest then lose their 
heads, and human prudence is at its wit's end. The 
wisest suggest turning back and making a circuit of 
the precipice. But the crowd behind is ever pressing 
forward ; those in the foremost ranks are toppled 
over into the 3 7 awning gulf, and when their bodies 
have filled up the abyss, the last comers pass over 
on the level. Grod be praised, the abyss is crossed. 
A cross is erected at the spot, and the tender hearted, 
come and weep there. 

Or, to take another comparison, it is as when an 
army has to cross a broad and deep river. The 
cooler heads wish to build a bridge or to construct 
pontoons, but the more impatient determine to let 
the men swim across; three-fourths perish, but any- 



308 The Future of Science. 

how the river has been crossed. Humanity, having 
at its disposal forces without limit, does not show 
itself very economical in regard to them. These 
terrible problems are insoluble, and one can only 
fold arms and look on in despair. Humanity will 
leap over the obstacle and do all for the best. Abso- 
lution for the living, and holy water for the dead ! 

Oh ! how fortunate it is that passion undertakes 
these cruel executions. Men of delicate mind would 
hesitate too much and go to work too timidly. 
When the work to be done is to found the future 
while inflicting blows upon the past, you require 
some of those redoubtable sappers who are not 
affected by woman's tears, and who are not afraid to 
use the axe. It is only by a revolution that institu- 
tions which have been long since condemned can be 
destroyed. In a time of tranquillity, people cannot 
make up their mind to strike, even when that at 
which the blow is aimed has ceased to have any 
raison d'etre . Those who believe that the renovation 
which was necessitated by all the intellectual triumph 
of the eighteenth century could have been effected 
peacefully are mistaken. Efforts would have been 
made to compromise, a thousand personal considera- 
tions, which in time of peace are much prized, would 
have been brought into " play ; " no one would have 
dared to abolish outright either the privileges, or the 
religious orders, or so many other abuses. The 
tempest took this in hand. The temporal power of 
the Popes is assuredly out of date. Yet if everybody 
had this opinion, no one would make up his mind to 
clear away this relic of the past. We must wait for 
the next earthquake to do that. Nothing is done in 
times of tranquillity ; it is only in revolution that 
people show daring. One should always endeavour 
to lead humanity in the paths of peace and to let 
revolutions glide along the soft inclines of time, but 
if one is more or less critical, one is fain to admit to 
oneself that this is impossible, that the matter 
cannot be effected in that way. But in any case the 



The Future of Science. 309 

thing will be done in one way or another. It is a 
waste of time to calculate and cunningly combine the 
means ; for brutality will have its finger in the pie, 
and there is no calculating with brutality. We have 
here an antinomy and an unstable equilibrium, as in 
so many other questions relative to humanity, when 
we envisage them exclusively in the present. There 
are men who are necessarily detested and cursed by 
their age ; the future will explain them and say with 
calm impartiality : it was necessary that there should 
be men of that stamp (145). Moreover, this pos- 
thumous rehabilitation is not rigorously just ; for as 
they are nearly always immoral, they have had their 
reward in the satisfaction of their brutal passions. 
I can imagine in theory a virtuous revolutionist, who 
would act in a revolutionary spirit through the sense 
of duty and in view of the calculated good of hu- 
manity, so that circumstances alone would be to 
blame for his acts of violence. But as a matter of 
fact there has never been any individual of the sort, 
and it may be that such a character is outside the 
limits of humanity. For such acts cannot occur 
without passion being imported into them, and, upon 
the other hand, such passions cannot fail to evoke 
some disinterested view. The character of revolu- 
tionists is very complex, and the extremely simple 
explanations given of them are convicted of being 
false by their very simplicity. 

Theophylactus relates that Philippicus, a Eoman 
general, being on the point of giving battle, began 
to weep as he thought of the great number of men 
who were about to be killed. Montesquieu calls that 
bigotry, but it was, perhaps, merely the result of 
a large heart. It is good to weep over these terrible 
necessities, provided that the tears do not prevent 
you from marching forward. What a cruel alterna- 
tive for the high minded ! Either to form alliance 
with the wicked and draw upon one the curses of 
those one loves, or to sacrifice the future. 

Woe to him who brings about revolutions ; happy 



310 The Future of Science. 

he who enjoys their fraits, and happier still they 
who, born in a better age, will no longer need to 
have resort to the most irrational and absurd means 
to effect the triumph of reason. The moral point of 
view is too narrow to explain history. One must 
raise oneself up to the level of humanity, or, let it 
rather be said, one must soar above humanity and 
raise oneself to the Supreme Being, where all is 
reason and where all differences are reconciled. 
There is the great white light, which, lower down, 
is refracted in a thousand hues separated by undis- 
cernible limits. 

M. Pierre Leroux is right. We have destroyed 
paradise and hell. Whether we have done right 
or wrong, I cannot say, but "it is certain that we 
have done this. One cannot replant a paradise, 
one cannot relight a hell. We must not remain 
half-way. We must bring down paradise upon earth 
that all may enter it. And paradise will be here 
below when all have their share in light, perfec- 
tion, beauty, and therefore in happiness. When 
the priest, with a congregation of believers around 
him, preached resignation and submission, because, 
after all, it was merely a question of suffering for 
a short time, after which would come eternity, when 
all sufferings would be reckoned as merits, that was 
all right enough. But we have destroyed the in- 
fluence of the priest, and it is not in our power to re- 
establish it. We decline to submit to it ourselves ; 
it would be a strange thing that we should wish to 
impose it upon others. Even supposing that we still 
had some influence upon the people, supposing that 
our advice had some weight and would not rather 
excite their mistrust, with what sort of a face could 
we sceptics go and preach Christianity, which we 
admit that we no longer have need of, to people who 
require it, in order to make things comfortable for 
us ? What would be the name to give to such 
a procedure ? For, since the beginning of the world, 
has there been a single instance of such a miracle 



Hie Future of Science. 311 

as lying and hypocritical scepticism makiDg men 
believers. Conviction alone effects conviction. I 
have read — where, I forget — a history of some bonzes 
guaranteeing to an old woman paradise in another 
world, if she would give them her fortune in this one. 
But the sceptic who preaches paradise and hell, in 
which he does not believe, to a people which does 
not believe in it either, plays a much more contemp- 
tible part. " My friends, leave me the enjoyment 
of this world, and I promise you enjoyment in the 
next." This, assuredly, would be a very good comedy 
scene, and the people, who have a very keen sense 
of the humorous, would be much amused by it. 

God forbid that I should say that belief in immor- 
tality is not in one sense necessary and sacred. But 
I maintain that when the sceptic preaches this con- 
soling dogma to the poor without believing in it, 
simply to keep him quiet, this should be termed 
a swindle ; it is equivalent to making a payment in 
notes which one knows to be bad ; it is turning the 
simple out of the track of the real and the true by 
means of a chimera. It cannot be denied that too 
much concern for the life of the future is in some 
respects injurious to the welfare of humanity. When 
one reflects that all things will be rectified above, it 
is no longer worth while to pursue so eagerly order 
and equity here below. Our principle is that we 
should regulate our present life just as if the future 
life did not exist, that it is never justifiable to refer 
to what is beyond in extenuation of any social con- 
dition or action. To appeal incessantly to the future 
life is to deaden the spirit of reform, to relax the zeal 
for the rational organization of humanity. All the 
work of social reform accomplished by the French 
bourgeoisie since the eighteenth century rests upon 
this implicitly recognized principle, that the present 
life must be organized without regard to the future. 
It is the surest way of not letting any one be made 
a dupe. 

But, it will be said, at all events do not interfere 



312 The Future of Science. 



with the priest, who is a believer himself, and who, 
therefore, may effect a conversion. True enough; 
hut do not place too much reliance upon this apostle- 
ship improvised in a moment of panic ; the people 
will feel that you are very pleased that they should 
be thus preached to, and will notice that you 
remain incredulous. You may pay missionaries to 
preach in all the villages ; but your incredulity 
will be a more effective sermon than any they can 
preach. 

Well, then, let us be converted ourselves. To 
make the people believe, we must ourselves believe. 
Of all courses, this is the most impracticable ; re- 
ligions are not to be resuscitated. A man cannot 
be converted at will. You will believe in a moment 
of panic ; you will try to believe. But what strange 
Christians are the Christians of fear ! As soon as the 
sun comes out, you will revert to your incredulity. 
You may have driven Voltaire out of your library ; 
you will not drive him out of your memory, for 
Voltaire is yourself. 

The idea, then, of containing the people by means 
of ancient ideas must be given up. There remains 
brute force, but be on your guard. Do not place much 
reliance upon that ; helots in a minority are still the 
stronger. One false step, one maladroit act will be 
sufficient for them to push you down and trample 
upon you. Are you quite certain of not making 
one false step in twenty years ? Eemember that they 
are there, behind you, waiting their opportunity. 
And besides, this is immoral and intolerable when 
one comes to think upon it. The happiness which 
I enjoy is only to be had at the cost of a portion of 
my fellow- creatures. If, for an instant, the mastiffs 
which keep watch at the door of the ergastulum relax 
their vigil, all is over. I never have been able to 
realize a sense of security in a country constantly 
threatened with the invasion of the waters, nor moral 
happiness in a society which presupposes the degra- 
dation of a part of the human race. 



The Future of Science. 313 

Nor must you fail to remark the fatality which, has 
brought things to this point, and which has riveted 
each link in the chain, and do not think that you 
have said all there is to be said when you have 
declaimed against this or that. It was by sheer 
force of things that cultured humanity broke off the 
yoke of ancient creeds, and was led to find them 
unworthy of acceptation. Can it be blamed for this, 
and can people believe what they please? There is 
nothing more fateful than reason. It was by the 
fatal working of things, and without any impulse 
from the philosophers, that the people in turn became 
incredulous. Who is to be blamed for this, seeing 
that it did not rest with the first sceptics to remain 
believers, and that they would have been hypocrites 
had they simulated a belief which they did not possess, 
while it would have been of very little effect, seeing 
that falsehood is powerless in the history of humanity. 
It is, lastly, by the force of things, that the unbe- 
lieving people has risen up against its masters in 
unbelief and has said to them : " Give me my share 
here below, seeing that you take from me my share 
in heaven." Thus there is nothing but what har- 
monizes in this development of the modern spirit ; 
the whole march of Europe for four centuries is 
summed up in this practical conclusion : to elevate 
and ennoble the people, and to let all men have a share 
in the delights of the intelligence. Turn the problem 
about as you will, that is what it amounts to. In my 
opinion, this is the capital question of the nineteenth 
century ; all the other reforms are secondary and 
premature, for they presuppose that one. To main- 
tain a portion of humanity in a state of brutality is 
immoral and dangerous, to give back to it the chain 
of the ancient religious beliefs, which had a fairly 
moralizing effect upon it, is impossible. Only one 
course, therefore, remains, and that is to widen the 
basis of the family and to rind room for all at the 
banqueting-table of lights Borne only escaped from 
social wars by opening its ranks to allies, after having 



314 The Future of Science. 



vanquished them. Thank God, we also have con- 
quered. Let us, therefore, open our ranks. 

Society is not, in my opinion, a merely conven- 
tional tie, an external institution and a simple matter 
of police. Society. has the charge of souls, it has 
duties towards the individual ; it does not owe him 
life, but the possibility of life ; that is to say, the 
first fund which, fertilized and multiplied by each 
man's labour, will in due course become the aliment 
of his physical, intellectual and moral life. Society 
is not the atom-like and fortuitous assemblage of 
individuals, as is, for instance, the tie which brings 
together passengers by the same vessel. It is primi- 
tive (146). If the individual were anterior to society, 
his acceptance would be necessary for him to be 
considered as a member of society and subject to its 
laws, and one might conceive, for instance, the possi- 
bility of his refusing to participate in its liabilities 
and advantages. But seeing that man is born into 
society, as he is born to reason, he is no more free 
to repudiate the laws of society than those of reason. 
Man is not born free, with full liberty to afterwards 
embrace voluntary servitude. He is born part of 
society, he is born under the law. He is no more 
entitled to complain of being subject to a law which 
he has not accepted than he is to complain of being 
born a man. The old societies had their sacred 
books, their epics, their national rites, and their 
traditions, which w r ere, so to speak, the depot of 
education and national culture. Each individual, 
upon coming into the world, found, in addition to 
the family, which does not suffice to make man, the 
nation, which is the depository of another and higher 
life. Christianity, which has destroyed the ancient 
conception of the nation and of country, has taken 
the place with modern peoples of this great national 
culture, and for a long time has quite sufficed. Thus, 
man has always had open before him a grand school 
of the higher life. Man, like the plant, is wild by 
nature ; to be a man does not mean merely to have 



The Future of Science. 315 



the human face or to reason upon a few plain sub- 
jects after the fashion of other people. To be a man, 
you must have intellectual and moral culture. 

I believe, with the Catholics, that our profane and 
irreligious society, paying heed solely to order and 
discipline, caring little about the immorality and de- 
gradation of the masses, so long as they continue 
to turn the mill in silence, rests upon an impossi- 
bility. The State owes the people religion ; that is 
to say intellectual and moral culture ; it owes them 
the school even more than the temple. The indi- 
vidual is only completely responsible for his acts if 
he has received his share of the education which 
makes the man. By what right do you punish this 
w 7 retch who has been shut off since his youth from 
moral ideas, having barely the power of discerning 
between good and evil, impelled by coarse appetites 
which are his sole law, and perhaps also by pressing 
needs ? You punish him for being a brute, but is it 
his fault if no one took him at his birth to cause him 
to be born to the moral life ? Is it his fault if the 
only escape he has received has been that of vice ? 
And to remedy these crimes which you have been 
unable to prevent, you have only the galleys and 
the scaffold. The true culprit in all this is the 
society which has not elevated and ennobled this 
poor wretch. What a strange coincidence that 
nearly all criminals should spring from the same 
class ! Nature, I would say with Pascal, is not so 
uniform. Is it not evident that if nineteen-twentieths 
of the crimes punished by society are committed by 
persons deprived of all education and prompted by 
want, the cause lies in this lack of education and in 
this want ? God forbid that I should ever seek to 
excuse crime or disarm society against its enemies. 
But crime is only crime when it is committed with 
full consciousness. Do you suppose that this poor 
wretch would not, like you, have been honest and 
good if he had, like you, been cultivated by a long 
course of education and ameliorated by the salutary 



31 G The Future of Science. 

influences of the family? We must start from the 
principle that man is not actually born good, but 
with the power of becoming good, any more than he 
is born a savant, but with the power of becoming so ; 
that the main thing is to develop the germs of virtue 
which he has in him, that man is not inclined to evil 
of his own choice, but by want, by the fatality of 
things, and especially for lack of moral culture. 
Assuredly, in the present state, when society cannot 
exercise a civilizing influence upon all its members, 
it is important to maintain punishment so as to deter 
those whom education has failed to keep from crime. 
But this is not the normal state of humanity, for, I 
repeat, you do not punish a man for being savage, 
though, if you have savages to govern, you may, 
so as to keep them in order, have recourse to the 
sanction of punishment. In that case, it is no longer 
a moral punishment ; it is making an example, 
nothing more. I willingly admit that for a man to 
reach the utmost limits of want, the point where 
morality expires in presence of want, there must at 
one time or another of his life have been some fault 
of his own— I except of course the infirm and women 
—that with morality and intelligence a man can 
always find a way out of his difficulties and resources 
of some kind. But is it the fault of these poor 
people if they do not possess this morality and 
intelligence, seeing that these faculties need to be 
cultivated, and that no one has taken any pains to 
develop them ? 

All the evil which there is in humanity proceeds, 
as I think, from lack of culture, and society is not 
entitled to complain of this, seeing that it is, to a 
great extent, responsible for it. When calling the 
two parties which now dispute for the mastery in 
the world aristocrats and democrats, we may say that 
the one and the other are, in the present state of 
humanity, equally impossible. For the masses being 
blind and deficient in intelligence, to appeal only to 
them is to appeal from civilization to barbarism. 



The Future of Science. 317 

Upon the other hand, {he aristocracy constitutes an 
odious monopoly if it does not set before it for its 
aim the tutelage of the masses ; that is to say their 
gradual elevationT: I was a spectator of those fatal 
days concerning which we may say : 

Excidat ilia dies a?ro, nee postera credant 
Srecula, nos etiam taceanms, et obliti multa 
Nocte tegi nostra? patiainur crimina gentis. 

God knows that never for a moment did I desire the 
triumph of the barbarians ; and yet I suffered pain to 
hear honest men pouring out mockery or anger upon 
these lamentable follies. It irritated me to hear 
people applauding the bloodiest acts of revenge or 
regretting that there were not more such. For, 
after all, did these senseless people know what they 
were doing, and was it their fault if society had left 
them in this state of imbecility through which they 
were destined, upon the first day of trial, to become 
the tool of the perverse and the foolish ? 

No one can deplore popular folly more than I do, and 
I am glad that it should be put down. But these acts 
of folly evoke in me only one regret, and that is that 
one half of humanity should be thus abandoned to 
its native bestiality, and I cannot understand any 
honest and clear-sighted mind failing at once to draw 
this conclusion. Of these beasts let us make men. 
People who laugh over these follies irritate me ; for 
these follies are, in part, their work. 

It used to be said in respect to hapless Italy : 
" Look and see if this people be worthy of liberty. 
Look what use they make of it and in what a way 
they defend it." No doubt, but whose is the fault ? 
Is it the fault of those who are condemned to nullity 
and who, advanced in age, wake up children ; or of 
those who have kept them under, and who then come 
and reproach a great country with the immorality 
of which they themselves have been guilty (147) ? 
This indignation will ever remain among the most 
vivid recollections of my youth. A guardian has 
made his ward imbecile in order to preserve the 



18 The Future of Science. 



management of his property. Chance restores to 
the ward for a moment the use of his fortune, and, 
as a matter of course, he makes ducks and drakes 
of it ; from which fact the guardian draws a strong 
argument for placing his ward again under his charge. 
So it is not " Away with the barbarians," but " Let 
there be no more barbarians," that we should ex- 
claim, for as long as there are any, an invasion will 
always be on the cards. If there were, face to face 
with each other, two races of men, the one civilized, 
the other incapable of civilization, the only policy 
would be to stamp out the uncivilizable race, or to 
make it strictly subject to the other. If it was true, 
as Aristotle believes (148) that, just as the soul is 
destined to command and the body to obey, so there 
are in society men who have their reason within 
themselves, and others who, having their reason out 
of themselves, are only fitted to execute the will 
of others, the latter would naturally be slaves ; it 
would be just and expedient that they should obey, 
their revolt would be as great a misfortune and crime 
as if the body revolted against the spirit. From this 
point of view, the conquests of the democracy would 
be the conquests of the spirit of evil, the triumph of 
the flesh over the spirit. But it is this very point 
of view which is deceptive ; an incontrovertible 
degree of progress has put a ban upon this aristocratic 
theory and laid down as an axiom the inviolable 
rights of those who are weak in body and mind as 
against the strong. All men bear within them the 
same principles of morality. It is impossible to love 
the people as they are, and it is only the ill-inten- 
tioned who are desirous of keeping them in their 
present condition, in order to be able to make them 
answer their own purposes. But let them have a 
care ; one day or other, the wild beast may likely 
enough turn and rend them. I am firmly convinced, 
for my own part, that unless we make haste and 
elevate the people, we are upon the eve of a terrible 
outbreak of barbaiism. For if the people triumph 



The Future of Science. 319 



in their present state, it will be worse than it was 
with the Franks and Vandals. They will destroy of 
their own accord the instrument which might have 
served to elevate them ; we shall then have to wait 
until civilization once more emerges spontaneously 
from the profound depths of nature. We shall have 
to traverse another period of the Middle Ages, to 
pick up the broken thread of learned tradition. 

Morality, like politics, is summed up, then, in this 
grand saying : To elevate the people. Morality 
should have prescribed this course at all times ; 
policy dictates it more imperiously than ever, now 
that the people have been admitted to share in 
political privileges. Universal suffrage will only be 
legitimate when all men shall possess that share of 
intelligence without which one does not deserve 
the name of man, and if, in the interim, it is to be 
maintained, this is solely because it is calculated to 
hasten the advent of that condition of things. Stu- 
pidity has no right to govern the world. How is it 
possible, I ask of you, to entrust the destinies of 
humanity to unfortunate beings, whose ignorance 
lays them open to all the tricks of charlatanism, 
who are scarcely entitled to rank as moral beings ? 
A deplorable state of things truly, when, in order 
to obtain the suffrages of an omnipotent multitude, 
the great point is not to be true, learned, clever or 
virtuous, but to possess a name or to be a brazen 
charlatan ! 

I will suppose some learned and laborious searcher 
to have discovered, if not the definite solution, at all 
events the most advanced solution of the great 
social problem. It is undeniable that this solution 
would be so complicated that there would be barely 
twenty people in the world capable of understanding 
it. Let us hope that he may be gifted with patience 
if he intends waiting, in order to get his discovery 
accepted, the adhesion of universal suffrage. An 
empiric who proclaims loudly that he has found the 
solution, that it is as clear as noonday, and that 



320 Tlie Future of Science. 

only the bad faith of interested persons can refuse to 
recognize it, who repeats every day in the columns of 
a newspaper certain stale commonplaces, such a man 
as this will assuredly make his fortune more quickly 
than one who looks for success to science and reason. 

Let it, therefore, be well understood that those 
who refuse to enlighten the people are those who 
want to make tools of them, and • who need their 
blindness in order to succeed. Shame to those 
who, when they talk of an appeal to the people, 
know that they are only making an appeal to imbe- 
cility. Shame upon those who base their hopes upon 
stupidity, who rejoice in the multitude of fools as 
in the multitude of their own partisans, and who 
believe that they triumph when, thanks to an 
ignorance which they themselves have fostered, they 
can say : " You see that the people will have none of 
your modern ideas." If there were no more fools to 
be got over, the profession of sycophant and parasite 
of the people would soon be at an end. The im- 
moral means of government, a Machiavelian police, 
and restrictions upon certain natural liberties and so 
forth, have hitherto been both necessary and legiti- 
mate. They will cease to be so when the State is 
composed of intelligent and cultivated men. The 
question of government reform is not, therefore, 
political ; it is moral and religious ; the Ministry of 
Public Education is the most important, I was 
going to say the only important one. After scrutiniz- 
ing all the necessary antinomies of the present 
political programme, it will, I think, be admitted 
that the intellectual rehabilitation of the people is 
the remedy for them all, and that the most liberal 
institutions will be the most dangerous, as long as 
what has been so well called " the slavery of ignor- 
ance " shall last. Until then, government a priori 
will be the most detestable of all governments. 

At the first dawning of modern liberalism, it was 
for a moment thought that absolutism was dependent 
for existence upon the force of a strong government. 



The Future of Science. 321 

But we have since found out that it has a much 
more powerful support in the stupidity and ignorance 
of the governed, inasmuch as we have seen peoples 
which have been set at liberty regret their chains 
and ask to have them forged afresh. It is no great 
thing to destroy tyranny ; that has been done a 
thousand times in the course of history. But to get 
on without it. .' . . In the view of some, that is the 
best apology which can be offered for those who 
govern ; to my mind it is their gravest offence. 
Their offence is that they should have rendered 
themselves necessary and have maintained mankind 
in such a state of degradation that they themselves 
ask for slavery and shame. M. de Falloux has 
expressed his surprise that the Tiers Etat of '89 
should have sought to avenge ancestors who were 
not conscious of any injury having been done them. 
That is true, and the most revolting part of the 
business, and that which cries most lor vengeance, 
is that these forefathers did not, as a matter of fact, 
feel that they had been wronged. 

As the greatest good of humanity should be the 
aim of every government, it follows that the opinion 
of the majority is only entitled to impose itself 
when that majority represents the most enlightened 
reason and views. What ! In order to please the 
ignorant masses, you will do a perhaps irreparable 
wrong to humanity ? I will never consent to recog- 
nize the sovereignty of unreason. The only sovereign 
by divine right is reason, the majority only has power 
so far as it is supposed to represent reason. In the 
normal state of things, the majority will, as a matter 
of fact, be the most direct criterion for ascertaining 
the party which is in the right. If there was a 
better means for ascertaining the truth, it would be 
expedient to have recourse to it and take no account 
of the majority. 

If we were to be guided by certain politicians who 
dub themselves liberals, the sole duty of a govern- 
ment is to follow public opinion without ever 

Y 



322 TJie Future of Science. 



attempting to direct the movement. It is, they 
say, an intolerable piece of tyranny that the central 
power should impose upon the provinces institutions, 
men and schools which are little in harmony with 
the prejudices of these provinces. They cannot 
admit that it is right that the administrators and 
teachers from these provinces should come to Paris 
and acquire an education which will render them 
superior to the people over whom they are placed. 
This is a singular scruple. Paris, enjoying a supe- 
riority of initiative and representing a more advanced 
stage of civilization, has the full right to impose 
herself and to carry forward towards perfection the 
less enlightened masses. Shame be to them who 
have no other prop than ignorance and stupidity, 
and who endeavour to preserve them as their best 
auxiliaries. The question of the education of 
humanity and the progress of civilization takes pre- 
cedence of- all others. No injury is done to a child 
in endeavouring to draw him out ol his natural in- 
difference, for the development of his intellectual 
and moral culture. The time is not yet near at 
hand when there will be no need to do good to 
humanity in spite of itself. To govern in the spirit 
of progress is to govern by right divine. 

Universal suffrage presupposes two things : (1) 
that all men are competent to form an opinion upon 
questions of government ; (2) that there is not, at 
the time of its being instituted, any absolute dogma; 
that humanity is at that moment without a fault and 
in the condition which M. Jouffroy has called prac- 
tical scepticism (scepticisme de fait). These epochs 
are epochs of liberalism and toleration. When one 
man is not more richly endowed than his neighbour 
with the knowledge of the truth, the simplest way is 
to count heads ; numbers constitute the right, or at 
least an external and practical right, which may very 
possibly not convert the minority but compels its 
acceptance. In reality, this is not very logical, for 
as numbers are not an indication of intrinsic truth, 



The Future of Science. 323 

the minority might say : " You force yourselves upon 
us not because you are right, but because you are 
stronger in numbers. That would be right, if 
numbers represented force ; for then, instead of 
fighting the question, it would be more reasonable 
to count heads and so avoid useless evils. But, 
although less numerous than you, we have better 
muscles and we are braver ; so let us fight it out. 
We are no more or less in the right than you ; you 
are the more numerous, we are the stronger ; so let 
us come to." The fact is that such a state of 
things is not normal for humanity ; and reason alone, 
that is to say the established dogma, confers the 
right of imposing one's will ; numbers are, in short, 
of as superficial a character as force, and that 
nothing can be firmly established except upon the 
basis of reason. 

I say it with due deference, and with the con- 
viction that those who read these pages will not set 
me down as a sedition-monger. I say it as a pure 
critic, looking at the revolutions of the present day 
as we do at those of Eome, for instance, and just 
as people will look at ours five centuries hence ; 
a triumphant insurrection is often a better criterion 
as to which party is right than is a numerical 
majority. For the majority is often composed or at 
all events based upon people who are very insigni- 
ficant and inert, regardful only of their own repose, 
who do not deserve to be taken into account ; 
whereas an opinion capable of stirring the masses 
and above all of causing them to triumph testifies 
by that very fact to its force. The vote by battle 
is at all events as trustworthy as any other form of 
vote, for with that only the living forces are counted; 
or rather the energy which opinion gives to its 
partisans is weighed ; and that is an excellent cri- 
terion. People do not fight for what is dead ; what- 
ever stirs the pulse the most is that which is fullest 
of life and truth. Those who are attached to what 
is absolute and to clearly defined solutions are ready 



324 Tlie Future of Science. 

to appeal to the numerical tests, for nothing can be 
clearer than numbers ; all you have to do is to count 
heads. But this would be making things too easy, 
and humanity does not go to work in quite so simple 
a way. Do what we will, we cannot find any other 
absolute basis than reason, and until humanity shall 
have reached a definitely scientific age, we shall 
have no other criterion of reason than the definite 
fact. The fact does not constitute reason, but in- 
dicates it. The best proof that the insurrection of 
June (1848) was unlawful was that it did not succeed. 
Here we have a necessary, insoluble antinomy, 
and one which will endure until some great dogmatic 
formula has once more englobed humanity. In the 
periods of scepticism, when people are aspiring to a 
new form which has not yet taken shape, no one 
being quite sure as to what the true religion is, it 
would be intolerable that such an one should, of his 
own individual authority, come and impose his creed 
upon others. People only declare all religions to be 
equally good when no particular one is sufficient. 
If there were any religion really alive, which corre- 
sponded to the requirements of the age, we may be 
sure that it would not be long in establishing its 
claims and that the nation would not be inclined to 
haggle with it. Indifference in politics is what scep- 
ticism is in philosophy, a halt between two dogma- 
tisms, one dead, the other in the germ. During 
this interregnum, each person is free to attach him- 
self to any doctrine, to be, according to his fancy, 
Pythagorean or Platonian, stoic or peripatetic. All 
forms are equally inoffensive, and the only function 
of authority is to keep the peace between them and 
to prevent them from exterminating one another. 
It is not the same in the dogmatic states, in which 
there is a living and actual reason, a doctrine outside 
of which is no salvation. Strong in all the life of 
the nation, it is the prime necessity and right of that 
nation. It is in one sense superior to the political 
law, inasmuch as it finds therein its reason and its 



The Future of Science. 325 



sanction. The government is then absolute and is 
carried on in the name of the doctrine which is 
universally accepted. All bends before it, and the 
spiritual power, which represents it, is all the more 
above the temporal power because the spiritual 
requirements of man are above his material interests, 
or, as it used to be said, the spirit is above the flesh. 
And this absolute rule is not tyranny. Tyranny only 
comes in when the chain is felt, when the ancient 
dogma has grown old and uses the same authoritative 
methods to maintain its supremacy. We are some- 
times unjust towards the persecutions of the Church 
in the Middle Ages. She was bound to be intolerant 
at that time, for so long as a whole society accepts a 
dogma and proclaims this dogma to be absolute 
truth, and that without any opposition, it is chari- 
table to persecute. It is neither more nor less than 
defending society. The wars of the Albigenses, the 
persecutions of the Waldenses, the Cathares, the 
Bogomites and the poor of Lyons do not shock me 
more than the crusades ; they were, as a matter of 
fact, stray sheep, who had quitted the great flock of 
humanity ; and as to the really advanced men of the 
Middle Ages, Scotus Erigena, Arnauld de Bresse, 
Abelard and Frederick II., they underwent the just 
punishment of being in advance of their time. The 
reason why these acts of the Inquisition in the 
Middle Ages excite our indignation is that we judge 
them from the standpoint of our own sceptical age ; 
it is very evident that in our day, when there is no 
longer any dogma, such acts would be execrable. 
To massacre other people for an individual opinion is 
horrible. But when it is done for the dogma of 
humanity, the whole question is altered. That a 
man should be violent and even cruel in the defence 
of his disinterested faith is regrettable, but may 
always be excused. Persecution only becomes odious 
when it is the work of interested agents, who 



sacrifice the thoughts of others to their own ease 
and comfort. 



326 The Future of Science. 

This is why the persecutions of the Church in the 
Middle Ages and in our time must be judged quite 
differently. For in these modern times, persecution 
has ceased to be what it was in the Middle Ages ; 
it is now no more than an antiquated form of oppres- 
sion, worn out, cumbersome and illegitimate ; all 
that it does to retain its power is odious, for it no 
longer has any raison d'etre. The death of John 
Huss itself excites my anger, for he represented the 
future ; the death of Yanini and Giordano Bruno 
revolts me, for the modern spirit had already become 
definitely emancipated, and as to the absurd religious 
persecutions of Louis XIV., no one but a narrow- 
minded and hard woman, Jesuits and Bossuet could 
have been capable of advising them to a worn-out 
and aged king. When the Church was the legitimate 
authority, she had much less cause to persecute 
than since she has ceased to be so. That great and 
odious persecution, the Inquisition, did not become 
positively monstrous until the sixteenth century, that 
is to say when the Church had been finally van- 
quished by the Reformation. Louis XIV. had not, 
so far as I can recall, a single act of severity to per- 
form in order to maintain his absolute authority, and 
this was almost a matter of course ; for his sove- 
reignty was legitimate and accepted ; no prince could 
have been more absolute and less tyrannical., The 
Restoration, upon the contrary, was always upon the 
qui vive to maintain a power assuredly much less 
extensive, and the smallest act of violence upon its 
part was revolting, for it was self-imposed. The 
measure of the violence which a power is obliged to 
display to maintain its position, and especially the 
indignation' which this violence excites, is the 
measure of its legitimacy. We are legitimists in 
our own way. The legitimate government is that 
which is based upon the reason of the age ; the 
illegitimate government is that which employs force 
or corruption to maintain itself in opposition to 
patent facts. 



The Future of Science. 327 

It is through not comprehending the difference 
between these two ages of humanity that so many 
sophisms are current as to the relations between 
Church and State. In the earliest age, that in 
which there is a true religion, the embodiment oi 
society, the State and religion are one and the same 
thing, and so far from the State salarying religion, 
religion maintains itself, and it is rather the State 
which, upon certain occasions, appeals to the Church. 
It is even superior to the State,' inasmuch as the 
State derives from it the principle of its existence. 
But in periods when the State, having no creed, says 
publicly : "I do not understand anything about 
theology, do as 3^011 please," it should not give a salary 
(it is then only that this ignoble word comes into ex- 
istence) to any one form of worship, or, what amounts 
to the same thing, it should do so to all. What 
the State gives to religions is but mere alms ; 
they may well blush in taking it, and I can quite 
understand the indignation of the Ultramontanes 
when they see God inscribed in the State budget 
like some public functionary. In these days, there 
are nothing except mere opinions, and why should 
the State pay a salary to opinions. I can understand 
the State recognizing a single creed, or not recog- 
nizing any. But I do not understand it recognizing 
all the creeds (149). The liberal theory of indif- 
ferentism is superficial. Humanity requires some 
doctrine. If Catholicism is true, the most extreme 
claims of the Ultramontanes are well grounded, the 
Inquisition: is a beneficent institution. In fact, as 
from this point of view sound belief is the greatest 
good to wmich all the rest should be sacrificed, the 
sovereign does a fatherly act in separating the grain 
from the chaff and in burning the latter. All must 
give way to the one necessary fact : the saving of 
souls. The principle of comjpelle intrare is legitimized 
by its results. If in sacrificing a thousand polluted 
souls you may hope to save a single one, irom an 
orthodox point of view the sacrifice is justified (150\ 



328 The Future of Science. 

I am sorry that it should be so, but there is no 
getting away from the dogmatic question. Those 
who want to keep this question apart are in the 
impossibility of reaching a logical solution. 

It shows want of shrewdness to presuppose an 
absolutely legal order of things, against which no 
objection can be raised and which imposes itself 
absolutely. Society is never in either a perfectly 
legal or totally illegal state. Every social state of 
things is inevitably illegal, so far as it is imperfect, 
and tends always to become more legal, that is to say 
towards- being perfect. It is not less superficial to 
suppose that the government is merely the expression 
of the will of the greatest number, so that universal 
suffrage would be a natural right, and that, this 
suffrage being acquired, there would be nothing left 
but to let the will of the people express itself. That 
would be too simple and easy. Only college pedants, 
superficial and simple minds could be deceived by 
the apparent evidence of the representative theory. 
The mass is only entitled to govern if we suppose 
that it knows better than any one else what is best. 
The government represents reason, God, or, if that 
phrase be preferred, humanity in the highest sense 
(that is to say the lofty tendencies of human nature) 
not a set of figures. The representative principle 
was all very well to uphold in opposition to the 
ancient dispositions of individuals, when the sovereign 
considered himself entitled to command of his own 
right, which is much more absurd still. But, as a 
matter of fact, universal suffrage is only legitimate 
if it can hasten the march of social improvement. 
A despot who effected this improvement against the 
wishes of the greatest number would be entirely in 
his right. When the Napoleon we want, the great 
political organizer, shall come upon the scene, he 
will be able to do without the papal benediction or 
popular sanction. 

The ideal government would be a scientific one, 
in which competent specialists would treat govern- 



The Future of Science. 329 

ment questions as scientific ones and would seek for 
a rational solution of them. Up to the present time, 
it has been birth, intrigue or the privilege of first 
come first served which have generally conferred 
grades upon the governing class ; and the first in- 
triguer who succeeds in sitting down in front of a 
board of green cloth is dubbed a statesman. I am 
not at all sure whether some day we shall not have, 
in some form or other, something equivalent to the 
Chinese institution of men of letters, and whether 
the government will not become the natural pos- 
session of competent men, of a sort of academy of 
moral and political sciences. Politics may be re- 
garded as a kind of science and required as much 
study and knowledge as any other. In the primitive 
societies, the college of priests governed in the name 
of the gods ; in the societies of the future, savants 
will govern in the name of rational search for what 
is best. In our day, such an academy would have a 
hard task if it had to demonstrate to ignorant and 
headstrong presumption the legitimacy of its action. 
The mania of foolish people for a reason to explain 
what they do not understand and to be angry when 
they do not understand is one of the greatest 
obstacles to progress. The wise men of the future 
will despise it. 

But, it will be said, how are you to impose upon 
the majority that which is best, if it refuses your 
offer. That is the very point which requires the 
most delicate handling. The sages of old had some 
very convenient auxiliaries in the oracles, the 
augurs, the Egeriae, etc. Others had armed forces 
at their disposal. All these means have become im- 
possible. The religion of the future will cut the 
knot with its heavy sword. Let us learn at all events 
not to be so severe upon those who have resorted to 
a certain amount of ruse and what it is the fashion to 
call corruption, if in reality (and that is the essential 
condition) they have only had in view the welfare of 
humanity. If, upon the contrary, they have only 



330 TJie Future of Science. 



had selfish considerations in view, they are tyrants 
and wretches. 

It is doing a disservice to a ward to place him too 
soon in possession of his property. But it is a crime 
to keep him in a state of imbecility in order to retain 
perpetual control over him. Better far is a pre- 
mature emancipation, for, after a brief period of 
dissipation, it may contribute to render him amen- 
able to reason. 

Until the people has become initiated to intel- 
lectual life, intrigue and falsehood are evidently put 
up for public sale. It is a question of securing the 
good graces of a blind old man, and, in order to do so, 
you must lie and cajole. The vivid scenes of Aristo- 
phanes are not in the least exaggerated. The suf- 
frage of the unenlightened people can only lead to the 
rule of the demagogue or of the aristocracy of birth, 
never to a government based on reason. The philo- 
sophers, who are sovereigns by right divine, are 
unsympathetic in the eyes of the people and exercise 
little influence over them. Look at what was the 
fate of all the sages (o'i aristoi) at Athens : Miltiades, 
Themistocles, Socrates and Phocion. They are not 
brilliant externally, they do not flatter, they are 
serious and severe, they do not laugh, they speak a 
language which is not understood of the multitude ; 
that of reason. How can you expect that men of 
this kind, if they attempt to speak to the multitude, 
will fail to get into disfavour? Only those who 
appeal to the passions of the people, or who style 
themselves dukes or counts, speak a language which 
is intelligible. These two languages are easily 
understood. 

This explains the disfavour the people has always 
shown against the philosophers, especially when 
they have had the temerity to concern themselves 
with public affairs. Left to choose between the 
charlatan and the genuine physician, the people 
always incline to the former. The people like to 
be told only things which are clear and easy of com- 



The Future of Science. 331 

prehension, and the unfortunate part of the matter 
is that in nothing is truth to be found upon the 
surface. The people are fond of banter. The most 
superficial and State views put in a grossly humorous 
vein which set the teeth of refined persons on edge, 
transport the ignorant with delight. The true in- 
terests of the people are rarely to be found where 
they appear to be. The wise men who go to the reality 
are regarded as the people's enemies, and the char- 
latans who confine themselves to commonplaces are 
as a matter of course their friends. Besides, there 
is, somehow or other, in the wise an indefinable 
degree of pride, however hard they try to be humble 
and condescending. It is not their fault ; pride (and 
the word is not used in a depreciatory sense) is innate 
in them. The grand seigneur is proud too ; but his 
pride does not shock the people so much. They 
console themselves for not possessing the gold and 
the ribbons of the grand seigneur ; but they cannot 
forgive the thinker for being superior to them in in- 
telligence, and they regard themselves as being at least 
as competent as he is in politics. The people are much 
more indulgent for the great than for the middle 
classes which are well educated and enlightened. 
The latter they regard as being upon the same level 
as themselves, and they look upon their superiority 
with great jealousy. The king and the royal family 
are as demigods and attract his -affection. But a 
plain bourgeois, whose talents have carried him into 
power, cannot fail to be a thief and an intriguer. 
The great are too much above the people to excite 
their envy ; jealousy can only exist among equals. 
A government composed of men with no great names 
is bound to be suspected and vilified. " What has 
this man, who is my equal, done that he should 
have attained this position ? He must be a dis- 
honest man, for otherwise he would be my superior, 
which, of course, is impossible. He has had the 
handling of the State funds, he must have let some 
of it stick to his fingers ; for I know that if I had 



332 The Future of Science. 

been in his place, I should have been much tempted 
to do so." Such is the language of coarse and 
vulgar envy. These suspicions never are directed 
upon those who are looked upon as being of another 
species and with whom it is hopeless to compare 
oneself. When in the company of some peasants, 
I noticed that they were very dissatisfied at the idea 
of their representatives in Parliament receiving a 
small salary even during the vacation when they 
were doing nothing for it ; yet these same people 
had nothing to say against the millions of the 
civil list. 

Assuredly, if everybody was like us, not only would 
government be much easier, but there would scarcely 
be any need of one. Governmental restrictions are 
in inverse proportion to the perfection of individuals. 
Now, all other people would be like us if they all had 
our culture, if all possessed like us the complete idea 
of humanity. Why is it that all liberty is accom- 
panied by a corresponding danger and stands in need 
of a corrective ? The reason is that liberty is the 
same for the wise as for the foolish. But when all 
men are wise, or when public reason is strong enough 
to keep the foolish in order, no restriction will be 
necessary. 

Fichte has gone so far as to conceive a social state 
of things so perfect that the very thought of evil is 
banished from the mind of man. I believe with him 
that moral evil will have marked but one age of 
humanity, the age in which man was neglected by 
society and did not receive from it the moral in- 
heritance to which he was entitled. " There are 
men," says M. Guizot, "who have full confidence in 
human nature. According to them, when left to 
itself, it tends in the direction of what is good. All 
the ills of society come from government, which cor- 
rupts mankind by violence or fraud." I am one of 
those who feel this confidence. But I believe that 
the evil is derived not from governments committing 
deeds of violence or fraud, but because they do not 



The Future of Science. 333 

elevate. I, as a man of culture, do not find any evil 
in myself, and I am impelled spontaneously towards 
what seems to me the most noble. If all others had 
as much culture as myself, they would all, like my- 
self, he incapable of doing an evil act. Then it might 
be said with truth : you are gods and sons of the 
Most High. Morality has hitherto been conceived 
in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as an 
internal struggle between contradictory laws (151). 
For my own part, I can declare that when I do right, 
I do not obey any one, that I do not engage in any 
struggle or win any victory, that I accomplish an act 
as independent and as spontaneous as that of the 
artist who derives from his inner sense the beauty 
of which he gives an external realization, that I have 
merely to follow with delight and in perfect acqui- 
escence the moral inspiration which comes out from 
the recesses of my heart. The man of elevation has 
only to follow the pleasant beat of his inward im- 
pulse ; he might adopt the motto of St. Augustine 
and of the Abbey of Thelema : " Fais ce que tu 
voudras," for he can only wish what is good. The 
virtuous man is as an artist who realizes the beautiful 
in human life as the sculptor does in marble, or the 
musician in sound. Is there anything like obedience 
or struggle in the act of the sculptor or the musician ? 
This is pride you will say. But that depends. If by 
humility is meant the small value which man attaches 
to his nature, the slight esteem in which he holds 
his estate, I utterly decline to give to such a seuti- 
ment the title of virtue, and I reproach Christianity 
with having sometimes taken this view. The basis 
of our moral law is excellence, the perfect autonomy 
of human nature ; the foundation of all our philo- 
sophical and literary system is the absolution of all 
that is human. 

The ennobling and the emancipation of all men 
by the civilizing action of society, such is, then, the 
most pressing duty of government in the present state 
of things. Everything which is done outside of that 



334 The Future of Science. 

is useless or premature. People are always talking 
about liberty, the right of public meeting, the right 
of association. Nothing could be better if the in- 
telligence of those who are to profit by them were 
in a normal state ; but until such is the case, nothing 
could be more frivolous. It will be all very well for 
people who are imbecile or ignorant to meet in con- 
clave ; no good can come out of their assemblage. 
Sectaries and party men imagine that it is only com- 
pression which prevents their ideas from prevailing, 
and they fret against this compression. They are 
mistaken. It is not the ill-will of governments which 
gags their ideas ; it is that their ideas are not yet 
ripe ; just as it is that peoples are kept in subjection 
not by the force of an absolute government out by 
the depression of the subjects of that government. 
Do you suppose that, if they were ripe for liberty, 
they would not secure it for themselves at once ? 
Our French liberalism, thinking that it can explain 
away everything by means of despotism, thinking 
exclusively of liberty, regarding government and its 
subjects as natural enemies, is in reality very super- 
ficial. Let us get to understand that it is not a 
question of liberty, but of acting, of creating, of 
working. The true always finds enough liberty to 
make itself visible, and liberty can only be hurtful 
when it is sought for by those who have not got 
good sense. It serves only to favour anarchy, and is 
of no service for the real progress of humanity. If 
a commissioner of police comes into a room where a 
few weak and empty headed individuals are mutually 
exciting their instinctive passions, we declare that 
we are shocked at such a violation of liberty. Do 
you imagine that it is these poor wretches who are 
going to solve the problem ? We use force to pre- 
serve for everybody the right of twaddling at his 
pleasure ; would it not be much better to speak the 
language of reason and teach all men to speak and 
understand their language. Close the clubs and open 
schools in their stead, and you will be doing true 
service to the popular cause. 



The Future of Science. 335 

The liberty of saying what one pleases presupposes 
that those to whom one addresses oneself have the 
intelligence and discernment required for passing an 
opinion upon what is said to them ; for accepting it 
if it is good advice, for rejecting it if it is bad. If 
there were a class legally to be defined incapable of 
showing this discernment, it would be necessary to 
exercise supervision over what was said to them ; for 
liberty is only tolerable when accompanied by the 
corrective of public good sense which takes due 
account of errors. This is why liberty of teaching 
is an absurdity, as regards children. For as the child, 
accepting what is taught him, without being able 
to pass criticism upon it, regards his master not 
as a man who gives his opinion to his fellow-men 
that they may examine it, but as an authority, it is 
evident that supervision should be exercised over 
what is taught him, and that some other liberty 
should be substituted for his in order to effect this 
discernment. As it is impossible to trace categories 
between adults, liberty becomes, so far as they are 
concerned, the only course possible. But it is cer- 
tain that until a people is educated, all liberties are 
dangerous and require restrictions. As a matter of 
fact, in questions relating to the liberty of expressing 
one's thoughts, we have not only to consider the 
right appertaining to the speaker — a right which is 
a natural one and only limited by that of others — 
but also the position of the listener, who, not always 
possessing the necessary discernment, is placed, as 
it were, under the tutelage of the State. It is from 
the point of view of the hearer and not from that 
of the speaker that restrictions are permissible and 
legitimate. The liberty of saying what one pleases 
can only be admissible when all men will have the 
necessary discernment, and when the best punish- 
ment for the foolish will be the contempt of the 
public. 

I am sorry not to be able to make sufficiently clear 
my conviction as to the vanity and hollowness of 



< 



336 The Future of Science. 

our political and liberal agitation, -which would he 
all very well in a State where men's minds were 
generally cultivated, and where many scientific ideas 
came into existence (for science cannot exist without 
liberty) ; but in a society composed for the most 
part of ignorant people open to every kind of seduc- 
tion, and in which intellectual power is evidently on 
the decline, to do no more than defend these empty 
formulas is to neglect the essential for almost insigni- 
ficant legal forms, inasmuch as authority can always 
exclude them or interpret them in its own way. 

M. Jouffroy has expressed this most clearly in his 
admirable discourse upon the scepticism of the time, 
which I might copy word for word as expressing my 
own views on this subject : " Each one of our liberties 
has appeared to us in turn as the object we have been 
longing for, and its absence as the cause of all our 
woes. And yet we have gained these liberties, and 
we are no better off, and the day following each 
revolution finds us in a hurry to draw up the pro- 
gramme of the next one. The fact is that we mis- 
conceive the true state of things ; the truth is that 
each of these liberties we have so eagerly desired, 
that liberty itself is not and cannot be the aim for 
which a society like ours aspires. . . . Take them 
one after another, the liberties which we enjoy, and 
you will see that they are no more than guarantees 
and means ; guarantees against whatever might stand 
in the way oi the moral revolution, which alone can 
cure us, means of hastening on this revolution, etc." 
It is not saying much to declare that the public 
liberties are better guaranteed now than they were 
at the dawn of Christianity ; and yet I maintain that 
a great idea would find in our day more obstacles in 
the way of its propagation than Christianity did at 
its birth. If Jesus were to appear now, He would 
be brought up before the magistrates ; which is worse 
than being crucified. Imagine the life of Jesus being 
crowned by a commonplace death ; what a difference ! 
People are too ready to beJieve that liberty is favour- 



The Future of Science. 337 

able to the development of really original ideas : As 
it has been remarked that, in the past, every new 
system has been born and has grown outside the law, 
until it has in time become law in its turn, it was 
not unnatural to expect that in recognizing and 
legalizing the right of new ideas to develop, the state 
of things would improve. But it is the very con- 
trary which has happened. There has never been 
so little originality in thought as since thought has 
been free. A true and original idea does not require 
permission to come into existence, and it matters 
little whether its right is recognized or not ; it always 
finds enough liberty, for it makes for itself all the 
liberty which it requires. Christianity did not re- 
quire liberty of the press or the right of public meet- 
ing in order to conquer the world. A liberty which 
is officially recognized requires to be regulated. . Now 
a regulated, or restricted liberty constitutes a tighter 
chain than the absence of the law. In Judaea, under 
Pontius Pilate, the right of meeting was not recog- 
nized, and, as a matter of fact, people were all the 
more free to meet ; for by the very fact of the right 
not being recognized, it was not in any sense re- 
stricted. Originality, I repeat, is better served by 
arbitrary methods and the drawbacks it entails than 
by the tangled web in which we are enfolded by 
thousands of laws and rules, which are an arsenal 
for weapons of every kind. Our formalistic liberalism 
is only really of service to agitators and to the petty 
originality which is so injurious to great originality 
and which is of so little use to the true progress 
of the human mind. We wear out our strength in 
defeuding our liberties, forgetting that these liberties 
are only a means, that they are only of value in so 
far as they may facilitate the advent of new ideas. 
We are above all things anxious to be free to pro- 
duce, and as a matter of fact we produce nothing. 

We shudder at the idea of the outward bond, and 
we understand nothing of the great boldness of 
thought. The very shadow of the Inquisition terrifies 

z 



338 The Future of Science. 

even the Catholics, and inwardly we are timid and 
devoid of "go;" we are only too ready to resign 
ourselves to public opinion and to habit ; we sacrifice 
our originality to it, and whatever travels at all 
outside the commonplace routine is declared to be 
absurd. Germany, no doubt, at the end of the last 
century and the beginning of this had less outward 
liberty than we have, and yet I defy any one to deny 
that all the free thinkers in our Republic had not a 
quarter of the boldness and liberty which are breathed 
in 4 the writings of Lessing, of Herder, of Goethe and 
of Kant. In reality, thought was more free half a 
century ago at the Court of Weimar, under an 
absolute Government, than in our country which 
has fought so many battles for liberty. Goethe, the 
friend of a Grand Duke, might have been prosecuted 
if he * had written in France ; the translator of 
Feurbach could not find a publisher who ventured 
to bring out his book. This is our peculiarity; we 
are an external and superficial nation, more con- 
cerned for the form than for the reality. The great 
and broad ideas about God have been and still are in 
Germany the doctrine of all philosophically culti- 
vated minds ; in France, no one has yet had the 
courage to profess them, and if he did he would 
encounter greater obstacles than he would have done 
at Tubingen or Jena under absolute governments. 
If it be asked whence the obstacle would come, the 
answer is from the intellectual timidity which closes 
our minds against any idea and traces around us the 
narrow horizon of the finite. France, I repeat, has 
only understood external liberty, but not in any 
respect liberty of thought. Spain, in reality as free 
and as philosophical as any other nation, has not felt 
the need of an external emancipation, and can you 
imagine that if she had seriously desired it, she would 
not have secured it ? Liberty there is entirely 
internal ; Spaniards have preferred to think freely 
in the dungeons and at the stake. Mystics like 
St. Theresa of Avila, indefatigable theologians like 



The Future of Science. 339 

Soto, Bafiez and Suarez were in reality as bold specu- 
lators as Descartes or Diderot. 

Let us, therefore, set ourselves to think more 
freely and scientifically, rather than to be more free 
to express our thoughts. The man who is right is 
always sufficiently free. Is it not very probable that 
those who protest against the violation of liberty are 
not so much the people who, possessed of the truth, 
suffer pain because they cannot divulge it, as those 
who, having no ideas of their own, Work to their own 
advantage that liberty which ought only to serve for 
the rational progress of human intelligence ? The 
innovators who have been right in the eyes of the 
future may, perhaps, have been persecuted ; but 
persecution has never retarded for much more than a 
year the triumph of their ideas, and has in other 
ways been of more service to them than if they had 
secured immediate acceptance. 

No doubt, it is our duty carefully to preserve the 
liberties which we have acquired with so many efforts, 
but, what is of greater importance still, is to convince 
ourselves that this is merely a primary condition 
which is advantageous if one has ideas and fatal if 
one has not. For what boots it to be free to meet 
if one has nothing of value to communicate to one 
another ? What boots it to be free to write and 
speak, if one has nothing new or true to say ? Each 
side has its part to play ; persecutors and persecuted 
alike have their shoulders to the everlasting wheel ; 
and after all the persecuted owe a debt of gratitude 
to the persecutors, as but for them they would not 
have the same title to admiration. 

Persecution has the great advantage of getting rid 
of the petty originality which endeavours to gain 
kudos by a paltry kind of opposition. When men 
risk' their lives for their ideas, it is only those who 
are possessed of Gtod, those who are carried away 
by a powerful conviction and by the invincible need 
to utter their thoughts who put themselves in the 
forefront. Our guaranteed semi-liberties give too 



340 The Future of Science. 

fine a field for intrigue ; for one does not incur much 
risk, and the annoyances to which one exposes one- 
self are, at most, but a good investment for the 
future. This makes things too easy, whereas in 
former times, out of ten innovators nine were put to 
a violent death, so that the tenth was really original. 
The pruning hook which lops off the weak branches 
does but give more strength to the others. In these 
days, there is no pruning hook, but there is no more 
sap. In short, all this is a matter of little impor- 
tance, and humanity will go on its way without the 
liberals and despite the retrogrades. The mind is 
never bolder and more self-reliant than when it just 
feels the hand checking it. Leave it quite unfettered, 
and it will be lacking in ballast, so contented with its 
liberty that it will think only of preserving it with- 
out any idea of profiting by it. The history of the 
human mind shows us how all ideas are born outside 
the law and grow in secret. If we go back to the 
origin of all reforms, they will appear in the regular 
course of things to be incapable of being put into 
force. Let us take our stand, for instance, in 1520, 
and ask ourselves how the new idea will succeed in 
piercing this sea of ice. It is impossible ; the chain 
is too strong, what with the Pope, the Emperor, 
kings, religious orders and universities ; and against 
all these only a poor monk. It is quite impossible. 
Or let us take the origin of modern rationalism. 
The age is in the meshes of the Jesuits, the oratory, 
priests, and kings. The Jesuits have made of educa- 
tion a machine to shrink the heads and to depress 
the minds, according to Michelet's expression. And 
against all this what have we except a few poor and 
obscure savants, with no backing in the masses, 
such as Galileo and Descartes. What can they 
expect to do, and how are they to lift such a weight 
of authority ? Yet a century and a half later it was 
done. 

Thus all reforms would have been prevented if the 
law had been rigorously observed, but the law never 



The Future of Science. 341 

provides for every contingency, and the mind is so 
subtle that a very small outlet suffices for it. So 
that it matters little whether the law grants or 
refuses liberty to new ideas, for they make their way 
all the same ; they come into existence without the 
law and despite the law, and they are all the better for 
this than if they had grown in full legality. When 
a river which has overflown its banks pours onward, 
you may erect dykes to arrest its progress, but the 
flood continues to rise ; you may work with eager- 
energy and employ skilful labourers to make good all 
the fissures, but the Hood will continue to rise until 
the torrent has surmounted the obstacle, or until, 
by making a circuit of the dyke, it comes back by 
some other way to inundate the land which you have 
attempted to protect from it. 



342 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

The end of humanity, and therefore the aim which 
political conduct should keep before it, is to realize 
the highest human culture possible, that is to say 
the most perfect religion, by science, philosophy, art 
and morality : in a word by all the means of attaining 
the ideal which are in the nature of man. 

This high culture of humanity could only be solid 
in so far as it was realized by the individual. Con- 
sequently, the end would not be attained if a 
civilization, however elevated, was only accessible to 
a small number, and especially if it constituted a 
personal enjoyment and one without any tradition. 
The end will only be attained when all men shall 
have access to this true religion, and when all 
humanity shall possess culture. 

Every man has a right to the true religion, to 
what makes man perfect ; that is to say every man 
ought to find in the society into which he is born 
the means of attaining the perfection of his nature, 
according to the formula of the day; in other words, 
every man ought to find in society, as regards the 
intelligence, what the mother furnishes him as 
regards the body, the milk, the primordial element, 
the primary foundation which he cannot procure for 
himself. This perfection needs a certain degree of 
material well-being. So that in a normal state of 
society, man would also be entitled to the primary 
funds necessary for procuring this livelihood. 

In a word, society owes to man the possibility of 



The Future of Science, 343 

life, of the life which man, in his turn, is bound, if 
necessary, to sacrifice to society. 

If socialism were the logical consequence of the 
modern intelligence, one would have to be a socialist : 
for the distinguishing feature of modern intelligence 
is the unquestionable. Many persons, indeed, with 
opposite intentions, maintain that socialism is the 
direct filiation of modern philosophy. Whence the 
one side concludes that socialism must be admitted 
as a necessity, while the other side maintains that 
modern philosophy should be rejected. 

Nothing causes more misunderstandings in the 
moral sciences than the absolute use of names for 
designating systems. Wise men never accept any 
of these names, for a name is a limit. They criticize 
doctrines, but never take them just as they are. 
What man of any mark in our day would take for 
himself the names of pantheist, materialist, sceptic, 
etc. ? Give me ten lines of any author, and I will 
prove to you that he is pantheist, and with ten more 
I will prove that he is not. These words do not 
designate a unique and constant shade of ideas ; 
they vary according to the aspects. 

It is the same with socialism. For my own part 
I would willingly adopt as my formula of opinion in 
this respect what M. Guizot says : " Socialism derives 
its ambition and its strength from sources which no 
one can dry up. But dominated by the forces of 
unity and order in society, it will always be combated 
and vanquished in so far as it is absurd and perverse, 
while gradually taking its place and its share in the 
immense and imposing development of humanity 
which is going on in our days." 

What constitutes the force of socialism is that it 
corresponds to a perfectly legitimate tendency of 
the human mind, and in this sense it is the genuine, 
natural development of it. One must be blind not 
to see that the work begun four centuries ago in the 
literary, scientific and political order is the successive 
exaltation of the whole human race, the realization 



PI 4 



The Future of Science. 



of that inmost craving of our nature for " more 
light." 

At the present juncture, the problem is set forth 
in particularly difficult terms. For, upon the one 
hand, it is necessary to preserve the conquests already 
secured for civilization, while upon the other all 
must have their share in the blessings of this civili- 
zation. This will appear contradictory, for it must 
seem at first sight as if the abjection of a certain 
number and even of the majority was a necessary 
condition of society as it has been moulded by 
modern epochs, and especially by the eighteenth 
century. 

I do not hesitate to assert that never, since the 
origin of things, has the human intelligence set itself 
so terrible a problem. That of slavery in antiquity 
was much less so, and yet it took centuries to con- 
ceive the possibility of a society without slavery. 

In proportion as humanity advances, the problem 
of its destiny becomes more complicated ; for it has 
to combine more data, to weigh more motives, to con- 
ciliate more contradictions. So humanity marches 
on, with one hand clutching within the folds of its 
robe the conquests of the past, and in the other 
holding the sword which is to effect fresh conquests. 
Formerly, the question was very simple ; the most 
advanced views, merely because they were the most 
advanced, might be regarded as the best. It is no 
longer so. No doubt it is always well to take the 
shortest route, and I do not at all approve those who 
maintain that we should walk, but not run. We 
should always do the best we can, and do it as 
quickly as possible. But the essential thing is to 
discover what is the best, and that is not an easy 
matter. It is barely fifty years ago that humanity 
saw clearly the object which it had hitherto been 
unconsciously pursuing. This is an immense pro- 
gress, but it is also an undeniable danger. The 
traveller who looks only at the horizon of the plain 
risks not seeing the precipice or the quagmire at his 



The Future of Science. 345 

feet. In the same way, humanity, when looking 
only to the distant object, is tempted to make a jump 
for it, without regard to the intermediate objects 
against which it may not improbably dash itself to 
pieces. The most remarkable characteristic of the 
Utopists is not to be historical, not to take into 
account of what we have been brought to by accom- 
plished facts. Supposing that the society of which 
they dream were possible, supposing even that it 
were absolutely the best, it would still not be the 
true society, that which has been created by all the 
antecedents of humanity. The problem is, there- 
fore, more complicated than it may appear ; the 
solution can only be obtained by balancing two 
orders of consideration ; upon the one side, the 
object to be attained, upon the other the present 
state of things, the ground we are treading. When 
humanity went instinctively forward, one might put 
confidence in the divine genius which directed its 
course, but one shudders at the thought of the dread 
alternatives it holds in its hands since it has reached 
an age of consciousness, and of the incalculable con- 
sequences which a blunder or an act of caprice might 
have. 

With these great problems confronting them, 
the philosophers reflect and wait ; among those who 
are not philosophers, some deny the problem and 
maintain that the present state of things must at 
any cost be preserved, while others hope to meet 
what is wanted by solutions too simple and too self- 
evident. It is needless to say that each side has 
good arguments to adduce, for the reformers throw 
in the teeth of the conservatives undeniable wrongs 
and evils which call loudly for a remedy, while the 
conservatives have no difficulty in demonstrating 
that with the system proposed by the reformers there 
would be no society possible. And better by far is 
a defective society than one which does not exist. 

I have often reflected that a pagan of the time of 
Augustus might have urged in favour of the main- 



346 The Future of Science. 

tenance of ancient society all that is said in our 
days to prove that nothing ought to be changed in 
the present state of society. What is the aim of 
this sombre and melancholy creed? What strange 
people these Christians are, people who avoid the 
light, unsociable, the very residuum of the people 
(152). I should be very much surprised if some 
of the self-satisfied people of those days did not say 
as in our own : We must not refute Christianity, 
but suppress it. Society in the presence of Chris- 
tianity is as it were in the presence of an implacable 
enemy. Society must crush it, or it will itself be 
crushed. In these conditions, all discussion is 
reduced to a struggle, and all reasoning to a weapon. 
What do we do in presence of an irreconcilable 
enemy ? Do we enter into controversy with him ? 
No, we go to war with him. In the same way, 
society must defend itself against Christianity, not 
by reasonings but by force. It must not discuss or 
refute its doctrines, but suppress them. I can fancy 
Seneca coming by chance across those words of St. 
Paul : " Non est Judaeus neque Grsecus ; non est 
servus neque liber ; non est masculus neque femina ; 
omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo." " Surely," 
he would have said, " Here we have a Utopian. How 
can a society exist without slaves ? Would you 
have me cultivate my land with my own hands '? 
This is subversive of public order and then what is 
this Christus who is playing so singular a part ? 
These people are dangerous. I will speak to Nero 
about them." No doubt if the slaves, taking literally 
and as being immediately applicable the words of 
St. Paul, had established their dominion upon the 
smoking ruins of Rome and of Italy and had deprived 
the world of the benefits it was to derive from the 
dominion of Rome, Seneca would have been to a 
certain extent right. But if a Christian slave had 
said to the philosopher : " Oh ! Annaeus, I know 
the man who wrote these words, he preaches only 
submission and patience. What he has written will 



TJie Future oj Science. 347 

be accomplished, without rebellion and by the masters 
themselves. A day will come when society will be 
possible without slaves, although you, as a philoso- 
pher, cannot imagine this," Seneca would not, in 
all probability, have believed him; but perhaps he 
would not have had the simple-minded dreamer 
flogged. 

Socialism is, therefore, right to the extent of dis- 
cerning the problem, but solves it badly; or rather 
socialism is not yet possible of solution. Individual 
liberty, in fine, is the primary cause of the evil. 
Now, the emancipation of the individual is secured, 
finally secured, and must for ever be preserved. 
"Society," said Enfantin, "does not consist solely 
of idlers and workers ; politics should have for aim 
the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of 
the lot of the workers and the progressive effacement 
of the idlers." Here we have a clearly defined pro- 
blem. Now let us listen to the solution. " The 
means are, as regards the idlers, the destruction of 
all the privileges of birth, and, as regards the workers, 
a classification according to capacities and a scale 
of rewards according to the work done." This is a 
remedy worse than the disease. It is a necessity of 
the human mind that when a problem is thus stated 
for the first time, certain ingenuous and generous 
minds, not possessed of enough rational critique nor 
a sufficient experience of history, .nor of any idea of 
the extreme complexity of human nature, should 
dream of the formation of a society too simple to be 
possible, and should imagine that they had found 
the solution in some obvious or superficial idea, 
which, if it could be realized, would go directly 
counter to their object. No social problem can be 
attacked from the front ; whenever a solution appears 
to be clear and easy, we must be on our guard. The 
truth, in this order of things is deep and hidden. 
But the duller minds, which do not seize these deli- 
cate shades of difference, blunder straight on through 
morasses and quagmires. This is an inevitable and 



348 The Future of Science. 

irremediable error. Persuaded that they hold the 
key of the enigma, these worthy souls are impor- 
tunate and very eager to be doing ; they are anxious 
to be given a free course, and they are convinced 
that only selfishness and ill-will stand in the way 
of their system being adopted. Those who laugh 
at these simple enthusiasts or who insult them are 
still less excusable ; for they are not any better in- 
formed, and they are perhaps still more backward, 
for they have not grasped the problem. My con- 
viction is that the day will come when it will be said 
of socialism as of all reforms : It has attained its 
object, not according to the aim of the sectaries, but 
for the good of humanity. Reforms never triumph 
directly; they triumph by compelling their adver- 
saries, in order to overcome them, to partially adopt 
them. It is like a storm which draws back into its 
vortex those who attempt to face it (153), a stream 
which carries with it those who seek to withstand it, 
a knot which tightens when you attempt to untie it, 
a fire which kindles when you blow to put it out. 
Humanity, like God of the Old Testament, accom- 
plishes the will by the efforts of its enemies. Ex- 
amine the history of all great reforms, and it will 
seem at first sight as if they were defeated. But in 
reality the reaction which has resisted them has only 
triumphed over them by conceding what was just 
and legitimate in their demands. It might be said 
of the reforms as of the crusades : Not one suc- 
ceeded; all succeeded. Their defeat is their victory, 
or rather no one gains an absolute triumph in these 
great struggles unless it be humanity, wmich profits 
by the energetic initiative of the innovators, and by 
the reaction which undesignedly corrects and im- 
proves that which it sought to suppress. 

We should, in my opinion, feel grateful to those 
who attempt to solve a problem, even when they are 
fated not to succeed. For, before reaching the true 
solution, many erroneous ones must be tried, and the 
panacea and the philosopher s stone must be allowed 



The Future of Science. 349 

to have their chance. I cannot profess much re- 
spect for that negative wisdom, so much in favour 
with us, which consists of making light of those who 
seek the truth and of remaining motionless and in- 
active so as not to risk being regarded as subversive. 
It is a poor merit not to fall when one does not move. 
The first people to enter upon a new order of ideas 
are bound- to be charlatans more or less in earnest. 
It is easy for us nowadays to sneer at Paracelsus, 
Agrippa, Cardan, and Van Helmont, and yet without 
them we should not be what we are. Humanity only 
reaches the truth through a series of successive errors. 
It is the aged Balaam who falls and whose eyes are 
opened (154). As one sees the tide bringing the ever 
collapsing waves upon the shore, the feeling aroused 
is one of powerlessness. The wave arrived so 
proudly, and yet it is dashed to pieces against the 
sand, and it expires in a feeble career of the shore 
which it seemed as though about to devour. But 
upon reflection, one finds that this process is not so 
idle as it seems, for each wave, as it dies away, has 
its effect, and all the waves combined make the 
rising tide against which heaven and hell would be 
powerless. 

Foreign nations often laugh at the waste of time 
and strength which a revolution entails in France „ 
and at the disappointments which cause her to revert 
to the point from which she started, after having 
paid very dearly for her excursion. It is very easy 
for them, seeing that they do not attempt to do 
anything, leaving us to make experiments at our 
own cost, to laugh when we make a false step upon 
this unexplored ground. But let them try what they 
can do, and we shall see. England, for instance, is 
obstinately attached to the most flagrant contradic- 
tions. Her religious system is the most absurd of 
any, and she is not to be moved from it. She refuses 
to open her eyes. Her quietism and her prosperity 
are a shame to her, and testify to her nullity. 

Such, then, is the situation of the human mind. 



350 The Future of Science. 

A vast problem lies before it, the solution of which 
is urgent ; but the solution is impossible and perhaps 
will not be ripe for a century. Then come the 
empirics with their deplorable naivete; each one of 
them has discovered at a glance- what has so per- 
plexed and baffled the wise and the experienced ; 
each of them undertakes to effect a general pacifica- 
tion, the only condition he asks for the salvation of 
society being that he should be left a free hand. The 
wise men who know how difficult the problem is shrug 
their shoulders. But the people have not the senti- 
ment of the difficulty of a problem, and the reason 
is very simple ; they imagine it to be too simple and 
do not take account of all its elements. 

To seek a perfect equilibrium and repose at such 
an epoch as this is to seek the impossible ; for we are 
by necessity in the midst of what is provisional and 
unstable. The calm is but an armistice and a breath- 
ing space. Humanity, when it is fatigued, is willing 
to pause, but to pause is not to rest. It is impos- 
sible for society to find calm in a state when it is 
suffering from an open wound such as that of to-day. 
The mere consciousness of the malady prevents re- 
pose, and one can but doze between one attack and 
another. At such a period, no one can be right 
unless it is the critic who does not offer a decided 
opinion. For the age is oppressed by a problem at 
once inevitable and insoluble. At these epochs, 
doubt and indecision are the truth ; the man who is 
not in doubt is either a simpleton or a charlatan. 
The life of humanity, like the life of the individual, 
rests upon necessary contradictions. Life is but a 
transition, an intolerable burden long endured. There 
is not a moment in which one can say that one rests 
upon any solid foundation ; one is always hoping to 
reach that solid basis, but only hoping. 

We must not, therefore, be surprised at these in- 
soluble contradictions. Only narrow minds can 
construct for themselves at any given moment a well- 
defined and rounded-off system, and imagine that 



The Future of Science. 351 

this infinite void (155) can be filled up with an a 
'priori constitution. The party man feels it necessary 
to think that he is entirely in the right, that he is 
fighting for a sacred cause, that those opposed 
to him are criminal and perverse. The party man 
seeks to force his antipathies upon the future, not 
reflecting that the future is devoid of passion against 
any one, that Spartacus and John of Leyden are 
merely objects of interest to us. Strange to say, we 
are only impartial and critical for the fanaticisms of 
the past, and we are fanatical ourselves. We barri- 
cade ourselves in our party in order not to see the 
reasons of the other side. The wise man does not 
feel anger against any one, for he knows that human 
nature only has its passions moved for the incom- 
plete truth. He knows that all parties are at once 
wrong and right. The conservatives are wrong, for 
the state of things which they uphold as good and 
which they do right to uphold, is bad and intolerable. 
The revolutionists are wrong ; for, if they discern the 
evil, they do not possess, any more than the con- 
servatives, the idea of organization. But it is absurd 
to destroy when you have nothing to put in place of 
what you destroy. Revolution will be sacred and 
legitimate when the regenerating idea, that is to say 
the new religion, having been discovered, all that 
will be needed will be to upset the worn-out state 
of things to give it its legitimate place ; or rather 
there will no longer be any need to effect a revolu- 
tion ; it will come of itself. Any constitution would 
be at once abrogated by it ; for it would be absolute 
sovereign. So it was in 1789. The revolution was 
ripe at that period ; it had already been effected in 
the public mind ; for every one saw what a flagrant 
contradiction there was between the new ideas created 
by the eighteenth century, and existing institutions. 
It was the same in 1830. The liberal revolution 
had preceded it, the liberal principles were accepted, 
in advance. Was it so in 1848? The future will 
show, but it is a remarkable fact that the victorious 



352 The Future of Science. 

side was the one most embarrassed on the morrow 
of the victory. The revolution of '48 was not at all 
a political revolution ; compare the politicians and 
the politics of to-day with those of the epoch pre- 
ceding the 24th of February, and you will find them 
to be absolutely identical. Its signification was that 
of social revolution, and as such it was certainly pre- 
mature, inasmuch as it proved abortive. Eevolutions 
must be made for well-ascertained principles, and not 
for tendencies which have not yet been formulated 
in a practical manner. 

Herein, then, lies the secret of our situation. The 
present state of things being defective and felt to be 
so, whoever comes forward with a proposed remedy 
is welcome. Upon the morrow of one revolution, 
the germ of another begins to form. This accounts 
for the favourable consideration which may be 
reckoned upon by any party which has not yet been 
put to the test. Bat no sooner has it triumphed 
than it is in as great a difficulty as the rest, for it 
does not know any more than they do. Hence arises 
the inevitable unpopularity of all authority, and the 
fatal position in which every Government finds itself. 
For it is expected to provide in a moment what it 
cannot give and what no one possesses, the solution 
of the problem of the hour. Every government thus 
becomes, by the force of things, a target for every 
weapon, and is condemned to be unable to fulfil its 
task. It is an unfair piece of tactics to remind the 
governing body of what they have said and promised 
during the time they were in opposition and to make 
them appear inconsistent ; for this inconsistency is 
necessary, and those who declare so stoutly that they 
would do differently if they were in power either lie 
or deceive themselves. If they were in power, they 
would be subject to the same necessities and would 
act in the same way. For the last sixty years there 
has not been a single Head of the State who has 
not died on the scaffold or in exile, and it was neces- 
sary that such should be the case. Any future one 



The Future of Science. 353 

will have the same fate, unless a periodic law, more 
favourable to him iu reality than he may think, 
comes in time to deliver him from office. How is 
it possible to avoid succumbing beneath an impos- 
sible task ? In reality, this does honour to France ; 
it proves that she has a high idea of perfection. It 
is to our credit that we are hard to please and dis- 
satisfied. Mediocrity is easily satisfied ; lofty minds 
are always full of disquiet and agitated, for they are 
constantly aspiring after something better. Only 
the infinite could thoroughly satisfy them. 

Tims humanity is in the position of a sick person, 
who suffers in whatever position he may be, and 
yet who allows himself to be constantly lured by the 
hope that he will be better if he turns round, devo- 
lutions are the upheavals of the everlasting Enceladus 
turning over when iEtna weighs too heavily upon 
him. It is superficial to envisage history as being 
composed of periods of stability and periods of tran- 
sition. It is transition which is the customary state. 
No doubt humanity remains fixed for a more or less 
lengthened period upon the same ideas ; but it is 
like the bird of paradise in the legend, which broods 
as it flies. All is the end, everything is the means. 
In human life, mature years are not the aim of youth, 
old age is not the aim of maturity. The aim is life 
taken in its unity. 

There is an optical illusion to which we who were 
born between IS 15 and 1830 are subject. We have 
not been the witnesses of great events, so we go 
back to the Revolution for our estimate of every- 
thing ; that is our horizon, the hill of our childhood, 
our world's end. Now it so happens that this horizon 
is a mountain ; we measure everything by that. 
This is deceptive, and cannot form any induction 
for the future, as since the invasion which constitutes 
the limit of ancient and of modern history, there has 
been no fact like that, and perhaps will not be again 
for centuries. But whenever there is any questkm 
of revolution, even if the reference be to mere child's 

2 a 



354 The Future of Science. 

play, we at once carry our minds back to this gigantic 
cataract, and never to the much slower changes 
recorded by earlier history, say that of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. 

I will take care not to follow political economy 
in its deductions, for the economists would no doubt 
attribute to my incompetence the suspicion which 
these deductions arouse in me ; but I am competent 
in matters of morality and of the philosophy of 
humanity. I do not concern myself with the means ; 
T speak of what should be and consequently of what 
will be. Well, I am convinced that humanity will 
succeed within a century in realizing that towards 
which it is now tending, with the exception, of 
course, that it will then be guided by new require- 
ments. Then one will be in a position to criticize 
both sides : those who resisted, and those who 
fancied that society could be reconstructed like a 
house of cards. Each man will have his part to 
play ; we, the critics, like the rest. What may be 
taken for granted is that nobody will be altogether 
right or absolutely wrong. Barbes himself, the 
unreasonable revolutionist, will then become an 
exponent of legitimacy, and the mutual explanations 
which must then ensue will be interesting. The 
common error of the socialists and of their opponents 
is to suppose that the question of humanity is a 
question of ease and enjoyment. If that were so, 
Fourier and Cabet would be perfectly right. It is 
horrible that one man should be sacrificed to the 
enjoyment of another. Inequality is only con- 
ceivable and just from the standpoint of moral 
society. If it were merely a question of self-indul- 
gence, it would be better that all should have Spartan 
fare than that some should have luxuries and others 
go hungry. Would it, in fact, be worth while to 
sacrifice one's life and happiness for the good of 
society if the sole result was to procure a little 
insipid enjoyment for a few insignificant idlers who 
have put themselves beyond the pale of humanity, 



The Future of Science. 355 

in order to live more at their ease ? Let me repeat 
that if the object of life was but self-indulgence, it 
would not be unreasonable that each oue should 
claim his share, and from, this point of view any 
enjoyment which one might procure at the expense 
of others would be in reality an injustice and a 
robbery. The communistic follies are, therefore, 
the consequence of the hideous hedonism of the last 
few years. When the socialists say : The aim of 
society is the happiness of all ; when their adver- 
saries say : The aim of society is the happiness of a 
few, both are alike wrong, but the former less so 
than the latter. What should be said is : The aim 
of society is the greatest possible perfecting of all, 
and material ease is only of value in so far as it is 
to a certain extent the indispensable condition of 
intellectual perfection. The State is neither an 
institution of police, as Smith would have it, nor a 
charity bureau and a hospital, as the socialists would 
have it. It is a machine for making progress. 
Every sacrifice of the individual which is not an 
injustice, that is to say the spoliation of a natural 
right, is permissible in order to reach this end ; for 
in this case the sacrifice is not effected for the enjoy- 
ment of another individual, it is made upon behalf 
of society as a whole. It is the idea of the ancient 
sacrifice, the man for the nation : expeclit unum 
hominem mori pro populi. 

Inequality is legitimate whenever inequality is 
necessary for the good of humanity. A society is 
entitled to what is necessary for its existence, how- 
ever great may be the apparent injustice resulting 
for the individual. 

The principle that there are no such things as indi- 
viduals is true as a physical fact, but not as a teleo- 
logical proposition. In the plane of things, the 
individual disappears ; the large shape mapped out 
by individuals generally is alone of any account. 
Socialists are not really consistent when they preach 
equality, for equality is derived mainly from the 



356 The Future of Science. 

consideration of the individual, and inequality is 
only conceivable from the point of view of society. 
The possibility and the requirements of society, the 
interests of civilization, take precedence of all the 
rest. Thus, individual liberty, emulation and com- 
petition being conditional to all civilization, the 
present iniquity is better than the final servitude of 
socialism. Thus, learned and lettered culture being 
absolutely indispensable in the scheme of humanity, 
even when it can only fall to the share of a small 
minority, this flagrant privilege would be excused 
by necessity. For there is not, as a matter of fact, 
any tradition for happiness, but there is a tradition 
for science. I will go so far as to say that if at any 
time slavery was necessary for the existence of 
society, slavery was legitimate, for in such a case 
the slaves were slaves of humanity (156), slaves of 
the divine scheme — a thing which is no more repug- 
nant than the existence of so many beings inexorably 
attached to the yoke of an idea which is above them 
and which they do not understand (157). If a day 
arrived when humanity once more needed to be 
governed in the old way, to be subject to a Lycurgus- 
like code, that would be quite justifiable (156). In 
the same way, the day may come when international 
rights will reach such a point that each nation will 
be sensitive like the limb of a body to what is going 
on in others. With a more perfect code of morality, 
rights which are now false and dangerous will be 
unquestioned, for the condition of these rights will 
be laid down, which has not yet been done (159). 
This may be conceived when once you attribute to 
humanity an objective aim (that is to say independent 
of the well-being of individuals) the realization of the 
perfect, the great deification. The subordination 
of animals to man, that of the sexes the one to the 
other, does not shock any one, because it is the work 
of nature and of the inevitable organization of things. 
At bottom, the hierarchy of men according to their 
degree of perfection does not shock one's ideas of 



The Future of Science. 357 

fitness a whit more. What is shocking is that the 
individual, of his own right and for his personal 
enjoyment, should enslave his fellow-man in order 
to have self-indulgence at his expense. The in- 
equality is revolting when we consider solely the 
personal and egotistical advantage which the superior 
derives from the inferior ; it is natural and right if 
considered as an inevitable law of society, the tran- 
sitory condition at all events of its perfection. 
Those who envisage rights, like the rest, as being 
always rigorously the same, launch anathemas against 
the most necessary facts of history. But this way 
of looking at things has grown obsolete ; the human 
mind has passed from the absolute to the historical, 
envisaging everything from the point of view of 
becoming. Rights create themselves like other things ; 
they are created, not, of course, by positive laws, 
but by the successive exaltation of humanity, which 
manifests itself in the conquest which it effects of 
these rights. The fact does not constitute the right, 
but manifests the right. All rights must be con- 
quered, and those who cannot conquer them prove 
that they are not ripe for these rights, that these 
rights do not exist for them, unless it be potentially. 
The freeing of the negroes was neither achieved nor 
deserved by the negroes, but by the progress in 
civilization of their masters. It is not because you 
have proved to a nation that it is entitled to its 
independence that it rises to claim it ; the young 
lion goes off to hunt for his food when he feels strong 
enough, without any one telling him. The wishes 
of humanity do not constitute the right, as Jurieu 
would have it ; but it is, in its general tendency and 
its main results, the indication of the right. The 
champions of the absolute right, like the jurists, and 
of blind facts, like Callicles, are both wrong. The 
fact is the criterion of right. The French Revo- 
lution is not legitimate because it has taken place ; 
but it took place because it was legitimate. Right 
is the progress of humanity; there is no right in 



358 The Future of Science. 

opposition to this progress, and, vice versa, progress 
is sufficient to legitimize everything. Whatever 
serves to advance the work of God is permissible. 

We Frenchmen, who are gifted with an absolute 
and exclusive spirit, fall into strange illusions in this 
respect, and we~ often reason much in this way, 
which is a very scholastic one, " Such a system of 
institution would be intolerable with us, at the point 
we have reached ; it must be so, therefore, every- 
where, and it must have been so always." The 
simple minded carry this to a most delightfully ludi- 
crous point, and a few months ago they wanted to 
make all Europe republican willy nilly. We want to 
establish everywhere the government which suits us 
and to which we are entitled. We think that we 
should be doing wonders if we established the consti- 
tutional regime among the savages of Oceania, and 
we shall soon be sendiug diplomatic notes to the 
Grand Turk to advise him to call together a Parlia- 
ment.* We reason in the same way with regard to 
the emancipation of the blacks. Assuredly, if there 
is a reform which is urgent and ripe this is the one. 
But we conclude that we are without transition to 
apply to the negro the regime of individual liberty 
which suits civilized people like ourselves, not re- 
flecting that what is above all things necessary is 
to educate these unhappy creatures, and that this 
regime is not suitable for doing so. The best system 
to be followed for the education of the negro races is 
that which Providence has followed in the education 
of humanity, for it is not, seemingly, by chance that 
it has made its selection. Look by how many 
stages the peoples have passed. It is certain that 
civilization cannot be improvised, that it requires a 
long course of discipline, and that it is doing a dis- 
service to uncultivated races to emancipate them 
all at once. I imagine that they need to traverse a 

* What M. Eenan suggests as a joke in 1850 was actually done 
if not by France, at all events by other Western Powers in 1876. 

— Transl. 



The Future of Science. 359 



state analogous to the ancient theocracies. Slavery 
does not elevate the negro, nor does liberty. True, 
he will sleep all day, or will run, like a child, about 
the woods. Abolitionism carried to an extreme 
betrays a profound ignorance of the psychology of 
humanity. I imagine, moreover, that the scientific 
and experimental study of the education of barbarous 
races will become one of the most striking problems 
offered to the mind of Europe, when the attention of 
the continent can for a moment be taken off from 
itself. 

The history of humanity is not only the history of 
its enfranchisement, it is above all the history of its 
education. What would humanity be if it had not 
traversed the ancient theocracies and the severe 
codes of a Lycurgus ? The whip has been a necessity 
in the education of humanity. We have ceased to 
envisage these forms except as obstacles which 
humanity has been compelled to break. She has 
broken them, no doubt, but only after having turned 
them to her profit. And was it not she, after all, 
who had created them for herself? The effort which 
is made to destroy them renders us blind to their 
anterior use. The revolutionary histories make the 
mistake of presenting the destruction of ancient forms 
as the great resultant of the progress of humanity. 
To destroy is not an end. Humanity has lived in 
the ancient moulds until they have become too 
narrow, and then has caused them to burst, but does 
any one suppose that this was out of anger against 
these moulds ? Do you suppose that when the bird 
breaks the shell of the egg, his object is to break ? 
No; his aim is to pass to a new life. The most we 
can say is that if the egg resisted, he might show 
rather more temper. In the same way, the moulds 
of humanity having grown hard and as it were petri- 
fied, a great effort was required to break them ; 
humanity was compelled to gather together its forces 
and to set itself to the work of destruction for destruc- 
tion's sake. It is in the order of things that the 



360 The Future of Science. 

moulds of humanity should acquire a certain solidity, 
that all thought should aspire to stereotype itself and 
to pose for being eternal (160). That becomes in the 
long run an obstacle, when the need comes for 
breaking ; and in the same way one might say that 
only mud huts or tents which can be taken down 
in an hour and leave no ruins behind them should 
be erected because, if you build palaces, they will be 
very troublesome to demolish. 

Alas, we are only too given to these ephemeral 
constructions. Humanity, in our day, is encamped 
beneath the tent. We have lost the long-sustained 
hope and the vast thoughts. The idea of demolition 
preoccupies and blinds us. Christianity, for instance, 
is no longer anything but a dam, a pyramid built 
across the road, a mountain of stones which stands 
in the way of the new buildings. But does it follow 
that those who built the pyramid were wrong ? The 
mould, as it gains hardness, becomes a prison. No 
matter, for it is essential that, in order to impress its 
shape, it should be hard. It only becomes a prison 
when the object which has been moulded attempts 
to emerge. Then we have struggles and recrimina- 
tions, for it is regarded as nothing but an obstacle. 
It is always the way ; the matter is looked at from 
only one side, and becomes a partial one because of 
the practical aim in view. He who destroys cannot 
be just towards what he destroys, for he regards it 
only as a stumbling-block, a stupidity, an absurdity. 
But, if you reflect a little, you must see that it is 
humanity which has fashioned it. Take the most 
odious of institutions, the Inquisition. Spain made 
it and put up with it, and would apparently have got 
rid of it if she had been so inclined. No doubt if we 
looked at it from the Spanish point of view, we should 
understand it. The speculative man alone can be 
critical ; liberals are not so ; they are superficial. 
Humanity is responsible for everything. We only 
declaim against force because we fancy the chain has 
been imposed by a force foreign to humanity. Yet 



The Future of Science. 361 

it is humanity alone which has forged fetters for 
itself. 

There are in humanity elements which seem solely 
destined to arrest or moderate its progress. We must 
not assume them on that account to be useless. 
Reaction has its place in the plan of Providence ; it 
works unwittingly for the general good. There are 
declivities down which the role of the traction engine 
consists solely in holding back. Those who seek to 
arrest a movement render it a double service : they 
accelerate and they regulate it. The aim of humanity 
is to get to the bottom of all the modes of life, to 
hatch them, to digest them, so to speak, in order to 
assimilate whatever they may contain of what is true 
and to cast out what is bad and useless. It is essen- 
tial, therefore, that it should keep them for a certain 
time, in order to effect this analysis at leisure ; other- 
wise too hasty a digestion of them would only result 
in weakening it ; the accumulation of a number of 
really nutritive elements would be prevented. If the 
men who play this part were disinterested, that is to 
say if they had solely in view the highest progress of 
humanity, they would be heroes ; for the part of re- 
actionist is an ungrateful one and is not highly 
prized. The essential thing for humanity is to do 
well what it embarks upon, so that there may be no 
need to go back upon it. It is not by swaying hither 
and thither, by swallowing and rejecting all kinds of 
ideas with ungoverned voracity, without either mas- 
ticating or digesting them, that so serious a work can 
be accomplished. 

I repeat that if one only regarded in civilization 
the personal good which results from it for those who 
are civilized, one would perhaps hesitate to sacrifice 
for the good of civilization one portion of humanity 
to the other. But the object in view is to realize a 
more or less beautiful form of humanity, and for that 
the sacrifice of the individual is lawful. How many 
generations was it not necessary to sacrifice in order 
to raise the gigantic terraces of Nineven and Babylon? 



362 Th& Future of Science. 

Positive minds regard that as quite absurd. No 
doubt, if the object in view had been to gratify the 
pride of some stupid tyrant this would have been 
true. But the object was to outline in stone one of 
the stages of humanity. Let there be no mistake 
about it; the generations buried beneath these 
masses lived a fuller life than if they had vegetated 
happy beneath their vine and fig-tree (161). 

I see before me, as I write these lines, the marvel 
of Koyal France, Versailles. I repeople in fancy its 
deserted corridors with all the century which passed 
away. The king in the centre ; here Conde and the 
princes ; there, in the pathway of the gardens, Bossuet 
and the bishops ; here, in the theatre, Racine, Lulli, 
Moliere and a few libertines ; on the terrace of the 
Orange-House Madame de Se'vigne' and the great 
ladies, and, in the distance, within the gloomy walls 
of St. Cyr, Madame de Maintenon and her melan- 
choly. There you have a civilization open to plenty 
of criticism, no doubt; but perfectly one and com- 
plete; it is one form of. humanity among many. It 
would have been a great pity if it had not been repre- 
sented, and yet it could not have been except at the 
price of great sacrifices. The degradation of the 
people, arbitrary and capricious conduct, court in- 
trigues and lettres de cachet, the Bastille, the gibbet 
and the Grands-Jours are the essential parts of this 
edifice, so that if you repudiate the abuses you must 
also repudiate the edifice, for they are integral parts 
of its construction. I should prefer, for my own 
part, the age of Louis XIV. although it is very much 
against my individual taste and although I regard as 
rather silly the craze there was for this epoch during 
the last years of the ancien regime, to a perfectly 
regular state of things, with each person liviug at his 
ease, creating nothing, founding nothing, producing 
nothing. For the aim of humanity is not that indi- 
viduals should live at ease, but that the beautiful 
and well-defined forms should be represented, and 
that perfection should be made flesh. 



The Future of Science. 363 

From the point of view of the individual, liberty 
and equality seem to be inherent rights. From the 
point of view of the human species, government and 
inequality are easily understood. It is better to have 
some brilliant personification of humanity, such as 
the king and his court, than a general mediocrity. 
It is desirable that the noble life should be led by a 
few as it cannot be by all. This privilege would be 
odious if only the self-indulgence of the privileged 
individual were regarded ; it ceases to be so if we see 
in it the realization of a humanitarian form. Our 
petty system of bourgeois government, aspiring above 
all else to guarantee the rights and to secure the 
ease and comfort of each one, is conceived from the 
point of view of the individual, and has failed to pro- 
duce anything grand. Would Louis XIV. have 
built Versailles if he had carping deputies to cut 
down his budgets ? Only the accession of the people 
can revive these lofty aspirations of the ancient 
aristocratic world. It would be better no doubt that 
all should be great and noble. But so long as that 
remains impossible, it is important that the tradition 
of stately human life should be maintained among 
the elite. Would the lowly be greater because the 
great were brought down to their level ? Equality 
will only be of inherent right when all men are able 
to be perfect in their measure. I say "in their 
measure ; " for absolute equality is as impossible in 
humanity as it would be in the animal reign. Hu- 
manity, in short, would not exist as a unity, if it 
was formed of perfectly equal unities, without any 
relation of subordination between them. Unity only 
exists upon the condition that diverse functions work 
towards the same end ; it presupposes the hierarchy 
of the parts. But each part is perfect when it is all 
that it can be, and that it does well all that it ought 
to do. Each individual will never be perfect, but 
humanity will be, and all will share in its perfection. 

Nothing is capable of explanation in the moral 
world from the individual's point of view. All is 



364 The Future of Science. 

confusion, chaos, revolting iniquity, if we do not 
envisage the transcendent resultant in which all 
things harmonize and justify themselves (162). 
Nature shows us upon an immense scale how the 
inferior species is sacrificed to the realization of a 
higher plan. It is the same in humauity. Perhaps, 
even, we ought to look beyond this too narrow 
horizon, and only look for justice, the perfect peace, 
the definite solution, the complete harmony in a 
vaster whole, to which humanity itself would be 
subordinated, in that mysterious to ttcLv, which will 
still endure when humanity shall have disappeared. 



The Future of Science. 3Q5 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

Theee is a tendency to believe that modern civil- 
ization must have a destiny analogous to ancient 
civilization and undergo, like it, an invasion of 
barbarians. It is forgotten that humanity never 
repeats itself, and does not twice employ the same 
methods. Upon the contrary, all goes to show that 
this fact of a civilization being nipped in the bud by 
barbarism will be unique in history, and that modern 
civilization is destined to propagate itself ad infi- 
nitum. It would probably have been so with the 
Greco-Roman civilization but for the great cataclysm 
which swept it away. The fourth and fifth centuries 
are only so meagre and superstitious in the Latin 
world because of the calamities of the times. If the 
barbarians had not come, it is probable that the fifth, 
and sixth centuries would have presented to us a 
great civilization, analogous to that of Louis XIV., 
a grave and severe Christianity, tempered by philo- 
sophy. Certain persons find a malicious pleasure in 
putting their finger upon points in our literature 
and philosophy which recall the Greek and Roman 
decadence, and they draw from it this conclusion 
that the modern spirit, after haviug (as they say) 
had its brilliant epoch in the seventeenth century, is 
losing caste and is gradually dying out. Our poets 
remind them, of Statius and Silius Italicus ; our 
philosophers of Porphyrias and Proclus ; eclecticism 
upon both sides closes the series. Our publishers, com- 
pilators, abbreviators, philologists and critics would 



366 The Future of Science. 

answer to the rhetoricians, grammarians and scho- 
liasts of Alexandria, Rhodes and Pergamus. Our 
lettered politicians would answer to the sophist 
statesmen, such as Dion Chrysostomus, Themistius 
and Libanius. Our pretty imitations of the classical 
style, and our pasticcios of exotic colour are just like 
Lucianus. But the true critics use with extreme 
caution this deceptive word " decadence." The 
rhetoricians who would have us believe that Tacitus, 
compared to Livy, is an author of the decadence, 
will doubtless also urge that Thierry and Michelet 
are of the decadence, by comparison with Rollin and 
d'Anquetil. The human mind does not proceed by 
so simple a path as this. How are you to explain by 
a decadence that prodigious development of G-erman 
literature, which, at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, opened up a fresh life to Europe ? Say that 
St. Augustin, St. John Chrysostom and St. Basile 
are geniuses of the iron age. The human mind is 
only obscured in one of its aspects for another to 
glow with all the more brilliant light. Decadence 
only exists in the view of those narrow minds which 
hold obstinately to a single point of view in litera- 
ture, in art, in philosophy, and in science. No doubt 
the man of letters finds St. Augustine and St. Ambrose 
inferior to Cicero and Seneca, the learned rationalist 
regards the legend tellers of the Middle Ages cre- 
dulous and superstitious by comparison with Lucretius 
and Euhemerus. But he who invisages the totality 
of the human mind does not know what decadence 
means. The eighteenth century has neither Ptacine 
nor Bossuet, and yet it is very superior to the 
seventeenth ; its science, its critique, its preface to 
the Encyclopgedia, its luminous essays by Voltaire 
are its literature. There was but one form of life 
for these ancient States. To overthrow the ancient 
institutions of Sparta is to overthrow Sparta itself. 
In those times, in order to be a good patriot, it 
was necessary to be a thorough-paced conservative ; 
the wise man of old is obstinately attached to the 



The Future of Science. 3G7 

national customs. It is not the same with us, for 
the day upon which France destroyed her ancient 
institution was the day upon which her epic history 
began. For my part, 1 expect that five hundred 
years hence the history of France will begin with 
the Jeu de Paume, and that what preceded it will be 
treated as a background, as an interesting preface, 
much like the notions on ancient Gaul which are 
placed at the head of our own histories of France. 

It is an easy commonplace to speak at large of 
social palingenesis, of renovation. It is not a question 
of being born again, but of continuing to live ; the 
modern spirit and civilization are founded for ever, 
and the most terrible revolutions will serve solely 
to signal the infinitely varied phases of this develop- 
ment. 

In accepting as a necessity the great fact of the 
invasion of the barbarians and passing an a priori 
criticism upon it, we find that it might have occurred 
in two ways. In the first (that in which it actually 
did occur), the barbarians, stronger than Eome, 
destroyed the Roman edifice, then, for long centuries 
to come, they endeavoured to reconstruct something 
upon the model of this edifice and with Roman 
materials. But another way would have been equally 
practicable. Rome had succeeded in perfectly 
assimilating the provinces and causing them to live 
after her way of civilization ; but she had been 
unable to act in the same way upon the barbarians 
who poured in during the fourth and fifth centuries. 
It is impossible to believe that she could not, if 
she had desired, do so, when we observe the eager- 
ness with which the barbarians, upon their entry 
into the Empire, embrace Roman forms, and drape 
themselves in Roman tinsel, titles of Consul and 
Patrician, in Roman insignia and costumes. Our 
Merovingians, among others, embraced the Roman 
mode of life with charming candour, and as to the 
two civilizations of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, 
they are so thoroughly the direct prolongation of the 



368 The Future of Science. 

Roman civilization that they added an important 
chapter, though one containing little that was 
original, to the history of classic literature. The 
barbarians did not at first make any change in the 
order of things which they found established. In- 
different to learned culture, they regarded it without 
much attention and consequently without displeasure. 
Some of them, even % such as Theodoric and Chilperic, 
took it with a promptitude and ease which surprise 
one. I believe that if the Empire had had as great 
men in the fourth century as in the second, and 
especially if Christianity had been as strongly cen- 
tralized in Rome as it was in the following centuries, 
it would have been possible to render the barbarians 
Romans before or immediately upon their entry, and 
thus to have maintained the continuity of things 
The world was within a hair's breadth of having no 
Middle Ages, and of the Roman civilization con- 
tinuing without interruption. If the Gallo-Roman 
schools had been strong enough to effect in a century 
the education of the Franks, humanity would have 
economized ten centuries. If that did not occur, 
the fault was with the schools and institutions, not 
with the Franks ; the Roman mind was too much 
weakened to effect immediately this immense work. 
The question, in fine, was whether this ancient 
edifice, into which so many fresh materials were 
waiting to enter, should be renewed by a slow sub- 
stitution of parts which would not break its identity, 
or whether it should undergo a thorough demolition, 
to be built anew with a combination of the oid and 
new materials, but again upon the old plan. 

As Rome was too weak at once to assimilate these 
fresh and violent elements, the change was effected 
in the other way. The barbarians overthrew the 
Empire, but in reality, when they attempted to re- 
construct they reverted to the plan of the Roman 
society, which had struck them from the very first 
by its beauty, and which was the only one, moreover, 
they knew. Their conversion to Christianity was in 



The Future of Science. 369 

plain truth their affiliation to Eome by the Bishops, 
who were the direct continuers of the Roman dress, 
language and habits. The Empire of which they 
caught up the idea for themselves was but a way of 
attaching themselves to Eome, the only source of all 
legitimate authority. And the Papacy what is its 
origin if it be not the selfsame idea, that all comes 
from Rome, that Rome is the capital of the world ? 
The Roman Empire should not be regarded so much 
as a State which has been overthrown to make way 
for others as the first effort of universal civilr'zation, 
being continued with a momentary extinction of 
reflection (which is the Middle Ages) in modern 
civilization. The invasion and the Middle Ages are 
realty no more than the crisis provoked by the violent 
intrusion of fresh elements which vivified and en- 
larged the ancient circle of life : they are but 
accidents in the great voyage, accidents which may 
have caused unfortunate delays, well compensated 
for by the inestimable advantages which humanity 
has derived from them. All this may be applied, 
word for word, to the future of modern civilization. 
In the very improbable hypothesis of the barbarians 
(who are only to be looked for among ourselves) 
suddenly overturning it, and without its having time 
to assimilate them, it is unquestionable that after 
having overthrown it, they would come back to its 
ruins in order to extricate from them the materials 
of the future edifice, that we should become, in re- 
lation to them, classics and educators, that it would 
be the rhetoricians of the ancient society who would 
initiate them into the intellectual life and would be 
the occasion of another Renaissance, that there 
would again be a Martianus Capella, a Boethius, a 
Cassiodorus, an Isidore of Seville, putting into a 
portable and easily handled compass the civilizing 
data of the ancient culture, in order to form the 
intellectual aliment of the new society. But it U 
infinitely more probable that modern civilization will 
be sufficiently lull of life to assimilate these new 

2 B 



370 The Future of Science. 

barbarians who are desirous of entering, and to con- 
tinue its march in their company. For look how the 
barbarians appreciate this civilization, how they press 
around it, how they seek to understand it with their 
simple yet keen perception, how they study it with 
curiosity, how pleased they are when they have 
guessed its meaning. Who could fail to be touched 
at seeing the interest which our nninstructed classes 
take in this civilization which is there in the midst 
of them, but not for them. They remind me of the 
simple wonder of the barbarians, in presence of the 
Bishops speaking Latin and when brought face to 
face with the vast machine of Roman organization. 
It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Sidonius 
Apollinaris and the keen wits of the Gauls to have 
shouted: " Vive les barbares ! " And yet they 
should have done so if they had the sentiment of 
the future (163). We who see things clearly, after 
fourteen centuries, take sides with the barbarians. 
What was it they asked for? Land to till, sunshine, 
civilization. Ah ! blessed is he who asks only to 
increase the family of the children of light. The 
barbarians are those who receive these new-comers 
with blows, for fear that their own share may be 
diminished. 

But, it will be said, your hopes rest upon a con- 
tradiction. You admit that intellectual culture, in 
order to become civilizing, demands a whole life of 
application and study. The immense majority of the 
human race, condemned to manual labour, is never 
therefore to enjoy the fruits of it. 

No doubt, if intellectual culture was always to 
remain what it is among us, a profession of its own, 
a speciality, we might despair of seeing it become 
universal. A state in which no one would have any 
other profession but that of poet, man of letters or 
philosopher, would be the strangest of caricatures. 
Intellectual culture is as if it did not exist for 
humanity, when people study only with a view to 
write. Serious literature is not that of the rhetorician, 



The Future of Science. 371 

who embarks upon literature for literature, who is 
interested in things spoken and written, and not in 
the things themselves, who does not care about 
nature, but who likes to read a description, who, 
unmoved by a moral sentiment, only understands it 
when expressed in sonorous verse. Beauty is in 
things themselves ; literature is imagery and parable. 
Strange is the man of letters who troubles himself 
about morality or philosophy, not. because that is 
human nature, but because there are works upon this 
subject, just as the man of erudition only concerns 
himself about agriculture and war because there are 
poems upon these subjects. This is to assume that 
the thiug which is related is more real and important 
than the thing which is. Art, literature, and elo- 
quence are only so far true as they are not empty 
forms, but as they serve and express a human 
cause. If the poet was merely, as Malherbe under- 
stood him an "arranger of syllables," if literature 
were merely an exercise, an attempt to do artificially 
what the ancients did naturally, it would, I admit, 
be a very trifling misfortune if all men could not be 
initiated into it. 

We must, therefore, come to conceive the possi- 
bility of an intellectual life for all, not in the sense 
that all participate in scientific work, but that all 
participate in its results. We must, consequently, 
conceive the possibility of associating philosophy 
and the cultivation of the mind with a mechanical 
art. 

This was what Greek society, so true and so 
unartificial, thoroughly realized. Greece was ignorant 
of our aristocratic prejudices which brand with 
ignominy any one exercising a manual profession and 
exclude him from what may be called the distingue 
world. A man might reach the noblest and most 
elevated life, though poor and working with his 
hands ; or rather the morality of the individual so 
effaced his profession that regard was had only to 
the individual, whereas now we regard only the 



372 The Future of Science. 

profession. Ammonius was not a porter who was a 
philosopher, he was a philosopher who happened to 
be a porter. May we not hope that humanity will 
some day revert to this beautiful and true conception 
of life in which the mind is everything, in which no 
one is denned according to his calling, in which the 
manual profession would merely be an accessory to 
which little attention would be paid, much as the 
trade of glass polishing was for Spinoza, a mere trifle 
which is done by the insignificant part of the 
individual without his attaching any importance to 
it or others doing so either. Work of this kind 
would not then be more servile than that which 
I am now doing in moving my fingers to write these 
lines. 

What makes a manual labour brutalizing now is 
that it absorbs the individual and becomes his self, 
his all. The definition of this unfortunate being 
is, in fact, shoemaker, or carpenter. This word 
tells his nature, his essence ; he is merely a human 
machine which makes boots and furniture. You 
cannot define in this way Spinoza as a maker of 
telescope glasses, or Mendelssohn as a shopman 
(164). The professional individuality only effaces 
the moral and intellectual individuality when the 
latter is insignificant. Imagine a well-instructed 
and noble-hearted man exercising one of these trades 
which require only a few hours' labour ; so far from 
the higher life being closed to him, he is in a situation 
a thousand times more favourable to philosophical 
development than three-fourths of those who occupy 
the so-called liberal professions. Most of the liberal 
professions, in fact, absorb every hour of a man's time, 
and, what is worse, of his thoughts ; whereas the 
trade requiring no reflection or attention leaves 
him who exercises it free to live in the world of pure 
spirits. For my own part, I have often thought that 
if I was offered a manual profession which, by my 
working four or five hours a day, would ensure me a 
living, I would abandon for it my calling of graduate 



The Future of Science. 373 

of philosophy ; for as this calling would occupy only 
my hands, it would not divert my thoughts so much 
as the necessity for speaking for two hours from 
what is not the actual object of my reflections. I 
should have four or five hours of delightful promenade, 
and I should have the rest of the time for the mental 
exercises which exclude all manual occupation. I 
should acquire during these hours of leisure positive 
knowledge, I should ruminate during the rest of the 
time upon what I had acquired. These are certain 
callings which ought to be reserved for philosophers, 
such as tiller of the soil, stone cutter, weaver and 
other occupations which require only the action of 
the hand (165). Any complicated work, anything 
which required the least attention, would be a 
depredation upon one's thought. Manufacturing work 
would, in this respect, be much less advantageous. 

Do you suppose that a man, in this position, would 
not be much more free to philosophize than a lawyer, 
a doctor, a banker or a government official ? All 
official positions are moulds more or less close ; to 
enter them, you must break and bend by force all 
originality. The teaching profession is now the 
almost unique resort left to those who, having a 
vocation for mental labour, are reduced by the 
necessities of fortune, to accept some external pro- 
fession, and teaching is very prejudicial to the higher 
qualities of the mind, as it absorbs and wears out 
much more than manual labour would do. None of 
us have forgotten the Lollards of the Middle Ages, 
those mystic weavers who, as they worked, hummed 
(lollarent) in cadence, and mixed the rhythm of the 
heart with that of the spindle. The be guards of 
Flanders, the humiliate of Italy, also reached a high 
degree of mystical and poetical exaltation, beneath 
the vivid pressure of that mysterious bow which 
causes new and candid souls to vibrate so powerfully. 
If most of those who exercise the so-called servile 
functions are really brutalized, it is because they 
aid empty-headed, because they are only put to 



374 The Future of Science. 

these functions as being fit for nothing else, because 
this function, purely animal and significant as it is, 
absorbs them altogether and still further degrades 
them. But if they had their heads full of literature, 
history, philosophy and humanism, if, in a word, 
they could, while working, talk to each other of 
higher things, what a difference that would make ! 
Many men devoted to things of the mind set apart 
a few hours of each day to hygienic pursuits, some- 
times differing but little from those which working 
men perform as a matter of necessity, and these do 
not appear to brutalize them (166). In the state 
of things which I should like to see, manual labour 
would be the recreation of mental labour. If I am 
told that there is no calling which would be suffi- 
ciently remunerative with four or five hours' work 
a day, I will reply by saying that in a properly 
organized society, where useless waste of time and 
unproductive superfluities would be eliminated, where 
everybody would work to some purpose, and espe- 
cially where machinery was employed not to do 
without the workman, but to help him in his task 
and abridge his hours of labour, I am persuaded 
(incompetent as I am in such matters) that very few 
hours of labour would be sufficient for the good of 
the society, and for the wants of the individual ; the 
rest would be for the mind. 

' ' If every instrument," says Aristotle, "could upon 
an order being given or even guessed, work of its own 
accord, like the statues of Doedalus or the tripods of 
Yulcan, which, as the poet tells us, went of their own 
accord to the meetings of the gods, if the spindles 
worked of themselves, if the bow played the violin 
without being held, the contractors would do without 
workmen and the masters without slaves (167)." 

This simultaneousness of two lives, having nothing 
in common with each other, on account of the in- 
finity which separates them, is by no means without 
example. I have often felt that I never lived more 
energetically by imagination and sensibility than 



The Future of Science. 375 

when I was applying myself the closest to all that is 
most technical in science aud seemingly the most 
arid. When the scientific object has some aesthetic 
or moral interest in itself, it quite absorbs the 
person who applies himself to it ; when, upon the 
contrary, it does not appeal at all to the imagination 
and the heart, it leaves these two faculties free to 
vagabond at their ease. I can conceive, in the 
erudite man, a very active life of the heart, and all 
the more active when the object of his erudition 
offers less aliment to the sensibility ; you then have 
two mechanisms quite independent of each other. 
It is the division which is fatal. A philosopher may 
exist in a state of things which requires only manual 
co-operation, such as work in the fields. He cannot 
exist in a position in which he must exercise his 
mind and concern himself seriously with petty affairs, 
such as commerce or finance. And, as a matter of 
fact, these professions have not produced a single 
man of mark in the history of the human mind. 

Far be it from me to believe that such a system 
of society is applicable for the moment, or even that, 
if applied, it would serve the cause of intelligence. 
We must not forget that the immense majority of 
humanity is still at school, and that to let them out 
too soon would be to encourage them in idleness. 
Necessity, says Herder, is the weight of the clock, 
which causes all the wheels to turn. Humanity is 
only what it is owing to the severe course of gymnastics 
it has gone through, and liberty would only involve 
decadence if it resulted in diminishing its activity. 
I was only anxious to explain the possibility of a state 
of things in which the highest intellectual and moral 
culture, that is to say true religion, would be acces- 
sible to the classes now regarded as the lowest in 
society. Do you imagine that if the working man 
possessed education, intelligence, morality, a mild 
and beneficent culture, that he would complain of 
his outward inferiority ? No, for, apart from the 
fact that morality and intelligence would infallibly 



376 TJie Future of Science. 

secure for him order and ease, this culture would 
cause hiin to be highly considered and liked, would 
bring him within the limits of that enviable circle 
where delicate perceptions prevail and from which 
he grieves to see himself excluded. The peasant 
does not feel his moral and intellectual objection, 
but the working man in large towns sees our higher 
classes, he feels that we are more perfect than he is, 
he finds himself condemned to live in a fetid atmo- 
sphere of intellectual depression and immorality, he 
who has smelt the pleasant odour of the civilized 
world is fated to seek his enjoyment (for man cannot 
live without enjoyment of some kind, the trappist 
even has his) in ignoble haunts which are repugnant 
to him, repelled as he is by his lack of culture rather 
than by opinion, from more delicate pleasures. How 
could he do otherwise than rebel against such a state 
of things ? 

Chimerical as it may appear from the point of view 
of our present habits, I maintain that this sirnul- 
taneousness of the intellectual life and of professional 
labour is possible. Greece is an illustrious instance 
of this; I do not speak of the most primitive 
societies, such as those of the Hindoos and tbe 
Hebrews, from which all idea of outward decorum 
and human respect was completely absent. The 
Brahmin of the forest, clothed in a few rags, feeding 
on leaves often dry, reaches a degree of intellectual 
speculation, a height of concipti m, a nobility of life 
unknown to the immense majo i.ty of those among 
us who call ourselves civilized. 

There are men very highly endowed by nature 
but scantily endowed by fortune, w r ho become proud 
and almost intractable, and who would die rather 
than accept for their livelihood what public opinion 
regards as an external humiliation. Werther leaves 
his ambassador because he meets silly and imper- 
tinent people in his salon; Caatterton commits 
suicide because a lord mayor oilers him a situation 
as valet. This extreme sensitiveness as to externals 



The Future of Science. 377 

proves a certain humility of mind, and testifies that 
those who feel it have not yet reached the highest 
philosophical summits. They are, in fact, upon the 
borders of the highly ridiculous, for if they are not 
in reality geniuses (and who can assure them that 
they are ? How many others have believed that 
they were without being so in reality?), they run 
the risk of resembling the most stupid, ridiculous 
and self-conceited of men, the unappreciated young 
men of genius, who look upon everything as being 
beneath them, who anathematize society because 
society does not make a suitable allowance to those 
who devote themselves to sublime thoughts. Genius 
is in no wise humiliated because it works with its 
own hands. Of course, one cannot demand of it that 
it should surrender itself with all its soul to its task, 
that it should become absorbed in its office or its 
workshop. But dreaming is not a profession, and it 
is an error to imagine that the great writers would 
have thought much more if they had not had any- 
thing else to do but think. Genius is patient and 
full of life ; I would almost say robust and hardy as 
the peasant. " The force of living is essentially 
a part of genius." It is amidst the struggles of an 
external situation that the great geniuses have de- 
veloped themselves, and if they had not had any 
other profession than that of thinkers, perhaps they 
would not have been so great, Beranger was a clerk 
in a government office. The man who is really 
elevated has all his pride within him. To take 
account of the external humiliation is to show that 
one takes some account of that which is not the 
soul. The degraded slave, who felt his inferiority to 
his master, endured the blows inflicted upon him as 
due to fatality, without dreaming of resenting them. 
The cultivated slave, who felt himself superior to his 
master, could not have felt himself in the least 
humiliated at having to serve him. To have been 
irritated with him would have been to put himself 
on a par with him ; it was better to despise him 



378 Tlie Future of Science. 



inwardly and say nothing. To be sparing of showing 
him respect and submission would have been equiva- 
lent to attaching importance to this. One only feels 
the insults of one's equals ; those of a blackguard 
affect people of his own kidney, but do not reach us. 
In the same way those whose inward excellence 
renders them susceptible, irritable and jealous of an 
outward dignity in proportion to their worth, have 
not yet passed a certain level, or understood the true 
royalty of men of high intelligence. 

The ideal of human life would be a state in which 
man had so mastered nature that material require- 
ments were no longer a motive, in which these 
requirements were satisfied as soon as felt, in which 
man, the king of the world, would scarcely have to 
make an effort to maintain it under his dependence, 
in which all human activity would, in short, be 
directed towards the things of the mind, and in 
which man would merely have to live the celestial 
life. Then would prevail the true reign of the spirit, 
the perfect religion, the worship of God as spirit and 
truth. Humanity still has need of a material stimu- 
lus, and at present such a state of things would be 
prejudicial, as it would only engender idleness. But 
this drawback is merely relative. For us, men of 
intelligence, the labour of existence and material 
necessities are merely an obstacle ; it is a part of 
the time we give to ransom the rest. If we were 
delivered from the thought of material wants, like 
the religious orders or the Brahmin, who plunges 
naked into the forest, we should be navigating with 
all sails set, we should conquer the infinite. . . . 

Patriarchal life realized this lofty independence 
of man, but it was at the sacrifice of not less essential 
elements ; civilization, in fact, can only exist where 
there is a parallel development of the intelligence, 
of the moral condition and of comfort. In ancient 
times, the same result was reached by slavery ; the 
free man was really in a very fine position, dispensed 
from terrestrial cares, and at liberty to cultivate things 



The Future of Science. 379 

of the mind. The careful organization of humanity 
will bring back this state of things, but in a much 
more complicated form than in patriarchal times, 
and without needing slavery. The work of the 
nineteenth century will have been the conquest of 
this material comfort, which, at first sight, may 
appear profane but which becomes hallowed if we 
reflect that it is one of the conditions of the 
enfranchisement of the mind. No one is more 
strongly opposed than I am to those who urge 
the rehabilitation of the flesh, and I believe never- 
theless that Christianity was wrong in preaching 
the struggle, the revolt of the senses, the mortification 
of bodily desires. That may have been all very well 
for the education of humanity, but there is some- 
thing more perfect still. That is not to think any- 
more of the flesh, to live so energetically the life of 
the spirit that these gross temptations may have no 
hold. Abstinence and mortifications are the virtues 
of barbarians and materialists, who, subject to coarse 
instincts, can conceive of nothing more heroic than 
to resist them ; so that these virtues are held in 
special esteem in sensual countries. In the eyes of 
those with coarse appetites, a man who fasts, who 
flagellates himself, who is chaste, who passes his 
life upon a column, is the ideal of virtue. For he, 
the barbarian, is gluttonous, and he quite feels that 
it would be a great sacrifice for him to live in this 
way. But in our eyes, such a man is not virtuous, 
for these pleasures of the palate, of the senses, are 
nothing to us; we think that there is no merit in 
foregoing them ; affected fasting proves that one sets 
great store by the things which one goes without. 
Plato was not so mortified, as Dominic Loricat, and 
apparently was more of a spiritualist. The Catholics 
sometimes assert that the disuse into which the 
fasting of the Middle Ages has fallen shows our 
sensuality ; but, upon the contrary, it is owing to 
the progress of the mind that these practices have 
become unmeaning and out of date. We must 



380 The Future of Science. 

destroy the antagonism of the body and of the mind, 
not by equalling the two terms, but by prolonging 
one of them ad infinitum, so that the other may be 
annihilated and become as zero. That being done, 
let the body have its enjoyments, for to refuse them 
to it would be to imply that these trifles are of some 
importance. The motto of the Saint- Simonians : 
" Sanctify yourself by pleasure " is abominable ; it 
is pure gnosticism. " Sanctify yourself by abstain- 
ing from pleasure " also leaves something wanting. 
" Sanctify yourself, and pleasure will become insig- 
nificant, and you will not think of pleasure " is what 
we spiritualists would say. Holiness consists in 
living for the spirit, not for the body. Gross minds 
may have imagined that in cutting themselves off 
from the bodily life, they rendered themselves more 
apt to the spiritual life. 

It is very possible that some day a still higher 
conception will be reached. The reason why plea- 
sure is quite a profane thing for us is that we take 
•it always as a personal enjoyment, whereas personal 
enjoyment has absolutely no suprasensible value. 
But if we took pleasure with the mystical ideas 
which the ancients attached to it, when they asso- 
ciated it with their temples and their festivals, if we 
succeeded in eliminating all idea of enjoyment, to 
see in it only the perfecting process which results 
from it for our being, the mystical union with nature, 
the sympathy which it establishes between us and 
things, I am not sure that it might not be elevated 
to the rank of a hallowed object. In my bare and 
cold room, abstemious and poorly clad, I seem to 
understand beauty from a somewhat lofty point of 
view. But I ask myself whether I should not under- 
stand it still better with my brain stimulated by a 
generous fluid, richly clad, perfumed and tete-a-tete 
with the Beatrice whom I have seen only in my 
dreams. If the creation of my fancy were incarnate 
at my side, should I not love and adore it the more ? 
Doubtless, if there is one thing more revolting than 



The Future of Science. 381 

another, it is that people should seek delight in 
intoxication. But if a man merely tries to aid his 
ecstasy by a very noble material element, and one 
which has called forth such noble poetry, the matter 
is quite a different one. I have read somewhere 
that a poet or a philosopher (a German, I think) 
made a point of getting intoxicated regularly once 
a month, in order to attain that .mystical state in 
which one gets closest to the infinite. I should not 
like to say whether all pleasures could stand this 
purifying process, and become exercises in piety, from 
which all thought of self-indalgence was excluded. 

The imperfection of the present state is that 
external occupations absorb all one's time, so that 
people devote themselves mainly to some profession, 
only cultivating the mind if they have time and 
inclination. The accidental thus becomes life itself, 
while the truly human and religious part almost 
disappears. If we come to look closely at the spec- 
tacle of human activity, we see that the greatest 
part of it is quite wasted. Raise yourself in fancy 
above a city like Paris, and try to analyze the motives 
which guide the hurried footsteps of so many thou- 
sands of men. You will find that the desire for gain, 
business, or material cares are the main cause of 
nine-tenths of these movements ; that pleasure is 
the motive of perhaps a twentieth part of this 
agitation, that scarcely one-hundredth part of the 
crowd is guided by affection, and that barely one in 
a thousand is impelled by scientific or religious 
motives. 

It seems as if external affairs are the main object 
of life, that the aim of the great majority of the 
human race is to live beneath the pressing and 
absorbing thought of how they are to gain their 
daily bread, so that life has no other aim than to 
sustain itself. What a vicious circle this is ! In 
a better state of human society, a man would first 
of all be himself, that is to say that the first care of 
each person would be the perfecting of his nature. 



382 The Future of Science 

Then, in quite a secondary way, to which scarcely 
any heed would be paid, one would belong to such 
and such a profession. That would be the antique 
idyl, the pastoral life conceived in their dreams by 
all the bucolic poets, a life in which material occu- 
pation is of such small account that no thought is 
given to it, and that a man is quite free for poetry 
and the beautiful. Then it will be said : " Our 
fathers had to place their paradise in heaven. But 
we can do without the paradise of God, for the 
celestial life is brought down to us here below." 

Such a state of perfection would not exclude intel- 
lectual variety ; upon the contrary, the originalities 
would be much more marked in it, owing to the free 
development of the individualities. And even if the 
variety of minds was destined to disappear in pre- 
sence of a more advanced culture, where would the 
harm be ? But let us hasten to say that uniformity 
would, as things now are, be the extinction of 
humanity. The hive has never been a centre of 
progress. We are traversing the age of analysis, 
that is to say of partial views, an age during which 
the diversity of views is necessary. When Plato 
desired, in his ideal Republic, that all should see 
with the same eyes and hear with the same ears, he 
purposely left out of the calculation one of the most 
essential elements of humanity. Humanity, in fact, 
is only what it is through variety. When two birds 
respond to each other, in what do their accents differ 
from an elegy ? Only from their variety. So far 
from preaching communism in the present state of 
the human intelligence, we ought to preach indi- 
vidualism and originality. No two men ought to 
resemble each other, for those who are alike count 
only as one. 

In the primitive syncretism, all men of the same 
race resembled one another like fish of the same 
kind. There are no individual characters in the 
primitiva epics; what the ancient critics told us 
about the characters in Homer is very exaggerated, 



The Future of Science. 383 



and, moreover, the Greek world, so full of life, so 
varied, so multiform, attained from the very first a 
very nice sense of distinction in these matters. The 
old Hebrew literature has little more than two cate- 
gories of men, the good and the bad, and in the 
Indian literature there is scarcely even this much. 
All the characters are presented as being very much 
the same. Our more finely drawn types do not 
appear until much later. 

As it is, education and the variety of the objects of 
study which create the varieties of mind, everything 
which tends to put all minds into one registered 
mould is prejudicial to the progress of human in- 
telligence. Men's minds, as a matter of fact, differ 
much more by what they have learnt, by the facts 
upon which they base their judgments, than by their 
actual nature (168). The habits of French society, 
so severe upon all originality, are, from this point of 
\iew, altogether to be deplored. " As," says Madame 
de Stael, "what constitutes individual existence is 
always a peculiarity of some kind, this peculiarity ex- 
cites ridicule, so that as people dread this above every- 
thing else they endeavour to avoid whatever would 
cause them to be remarked one way or the other." 
The truly noble and gifted natures are not those in 
which the opposing elements neutralize one another, 
but those in which extremes meet, not simultaneously, 
but successively, and according to the surface 
which has to be delineated. The perfect man would 
be one as inflexible as a philosopher, as weak as a 
woman, as hardy as a Breton peasant, as ingenuous 
and gentle as a child. The colourless natures, 
formed of a kind of proportional medium between 
extremes, are of no value in an epoch of analysis. 

Analysis, in fact, exists only through the diversity 
of the points of view, and upon condition of all the 
sides of a subject being completely elucidated ; to 
each his task, to each his atom to explore, such is 
its motto. What is required in a given state of 
things is the greatest possible variety among in- 



384 The Future of Science. 

dividuals ; for each originality is the outline of one 
way of looking at things ; it is one way of taking the 
world. But it may be that some day or other 
humanity will reach such a state of individual per- 
fection, so complete a synthesis, that all men will 
have reached an equally advanced stage, and that 
they will make their fresh starting-point from there 
towards the future. And this harmony will be 
realized not by theocracy, not by the suppression of 
the individual, not by the "Father king" of the 
Saint- Simonians who regulated belief as well as all 
else, but by a mutual and unfettered aspiration, as 
is the case with the ideal in heaven. It is easy to 
bind the sheaves which have been cut. But it is 
another matter to bind the living sheaves ! At the 
present time, all are harnessed to the same car ; but 
some are pulling forward, some backward, others in 
different directions, and so there is no progress. 
But then all will pull in the same direction; then, 
science, which is now only cultivated by a few obscure 
men lost in the crowd, will be pursued by millions of 
men, seeking in unison the solution of the problems set 
before them. Oh ! for the day when there will no 
longer be any great men, because all will be equally 
great, and when humanity, coming back to unity, 
will march like one man to the conquest of the ideal 
and of the secret of things (169) ! What will be able 
to resist science when humanity itself is scientific and 
marches with one accord to the assault of the truth ? 
Why, it will be said, take account of these 
chimeras ? Let the future take care of itself, and 
have to do with the present. My answer is that 
nothing can be done without chimeras. Man needs, 
in order that he may bring into play all his activity, 
to place before himself an object capable of rousing 
his energies. What is the use of labouring for the 
future if the future is to be colourless. and insignificant '? 
Would it not be better to think of his ease and 
pleasure in this life than to sacrifice himself for a 
void ? The first Mussulmans would not have 



The Future of Science. 385 



marched from one end of the world to the other if 
Abu Bekr had not told them that they had Paradise 
before them. The Conquistadores would not have 
undertaken their perilous expeditions if they had not 
hoped to find the El Dorado, the fountain of Jouvence, 
the Cipangu with its golden roofs. Alexander went 
in pursuit of the Griffins and the Arimaspes. 
Columbus, on returning from the islands of St. 
Brandon and the earthly paradise, discovered America. 
With the idea that the paradise is in the remote 
distance, the world marches on and on, and dis- 
covers something better than paradise. " The 
heart," says Herder (170), " beats only for that 
which is distant." Hopes, moreover, which may be 
chimerical in form are not envisaged as such when 
regarded as the symbol of the future of humanity. 
The Jews had the Messiah because they fervently 
looked for Him. No idea is realized without the 
inward working of faith and hope. The early 
Christians daily expected to see the New Jerusalem 
coming down out of heaven and Christ descending 
to reign. You will say that they were mad. But 
hope never deceives, and I am convinced that all 
the hopes of the believer will be fulfilled and even 
more than fulfilled. Humanity realizes perfection by 
desiring it and hoping it, as the woman is said to im- 
press upon the child in her womb the objects which 
strike her senses. These hopes are so far from being 
objects of indifference that they alone explain and 
render possible the life of sacrifice and devotion. 
What use, indeed, is it to devote oneself to relieving 
misfortunes which only come into existence at the 
moment they are felt ? Why sacrifice one's comfort 
to that of others, if, after all, only a mere question of 
enjoyment is at stake ? My happiness is as precious 
to me as that of others, and I should be very stupid 
to sacrifice it for them. If I did not believe that 
1 u nanity is called to a divine end, to the realization 
of the perfect, I should become an Epicurean, if I were 
capable of doing so, and if not, I should commit suicide. 

2 c 



386 The Future of Science. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

I should be much misunderstood if it were concluded 
from what precedes that I had any intention of 
suggesting that science should descend from its 
eminence to put itself on a level with the people. 
I have a profound antipathy for popular science, 
because it cannot be the true science. Over the 
portals of an ancient school were inscribed the 
words : " Let no man enter here unless he knows 
geometry." The modern philosophical school should 
have for motto: "Let no man enter here un- 
less he knows the human mind, history, literature, 
etc." Science loses all its dignity when it lowers 
itself to these childish forrnulse and to a language 
which is not its own. In order to render these lofty 
philosophic theories intelligible to the vulgar, we are 
obliged to strip them of their true form, to subject 
them to the narrow measure of common sense, to 
distort them. It would be very desirable that the 
mass of the human race should elevate itself to the 
comprehension of science, but science must not abase 
itself in order to be understood. It must remain upon 
its lofty eminence and raise humanity up to it. I am 
not opposed to the literature of the working classes. 
Upon the contrary. I believe, with M. Michelet, 
that the people possess a true fund of feeliug, superior 
in one sense to that of nearly all our aristocratic 
poets. The most original poems written since 
Lamartine and Victor Hugo ceased composing are, 
perhaps, those of working men. This is all the 



The Fufrire of Science. 387 

more meritorious seeing that the instrument which 
we put into their hands is extremely aristocratic and 
inflexible and the very antithesis of popular thought. 
With respect to the social and philosophical 
writings, in which the form is of less consequence 
than in literature, working men often display more 
intelligence than the bulk of well-read men. The 
man who has only had primary instruction is nearer 
to positivism and to the negation of the supernatural 
than the bourgeois who has had a classical education, 
for this latter often inclines people to be content with 
mere words. But the working men often commit a 
really unpardonable error ; that of discarding the 
line in which they might excel to treat of subjects 
in regard to which they are incompetent and which 
require a culture very different from that afforded by 
little school books. M. Agricol Perdiguier was 
original as long as he was content to be only the 
workman. What people liked in him was that he 
told them what was the way of thinking of a certain 
class of society, and also the ingenuous effort of the 
half-educated man to find an instrument for his 
thoughts. But one fine day, he set himself to com- 
pile a Universal History, a work in which Bossuet 
had failed. It is all very well for M. Perdiguier to 
say that it was a history for the working man ; that 
all his predecessors had treated history from the point 
of view of the classics and like college pedants. 
There are not, so far as I am aware, two histories, 
one for the learned and the other for the unlearned, 
and I only know one class of men capable of writing 
it, and that is the savants who are broken by a long 
course of intellectual culture to all the fine points of 
criticism. Science and philosophy must preserve 
their lofty independence, that is to say only pursue 
the truth in all its objectivity, without troubling 
themselves about any popular or worldly form. 
Drawing-room science is just as little true science as 
is the science of petty popular treatises. Science 
degrades itself when it ceases to correspond directly, 



388 The Future of Science. 

like poetry, music, and religion, to a disinterested 
requirement of human nature. How rare, with, us, 
is this pure cult of all the parts of the human soul. 
Collecting hy themselves, and as it were in a useless 
bundle of religious cares, we make vulgar interests 
the essential of life. Knowledge, we are told, does 
not suffice to ensure salvation; knowledge does not 
serve to make one's fortune ; consequently, know- 
ledge is useless (171). 

The great misfortune of contemporary society is 
that intellectual culture is not recognized in it as a 
religious concern ; that poetry, science, and literature 
are regarded as an artistic luxury appealing only to 
the classes privileged by fortune. Greek art pro- 
duced for the sake of the country, for the national 
thought ; the art of the seventeenth century produced 
for the king, which was, in one way, to produce for 
the nation. Art, in our day, produces only at the 
express or understood command of individuals. The 
artist corresponds to the amateur, as the cook does to 
the gastronomist. This is a deplorable situation at 
an epoch when, with rare exceptions, the subdivision 
of property makes it impossible for private individuals 
to achieve great things. Greece owed her poems, 
her temples, and her statues to her inward spon- 
taneousness, they were due to her own fecundity and 
to her craving to satisfy one of the needs of human 
nature. With us, art is granted a few sparing sub- 
sidies, which are made not from a desire to see the 
national thought finding expression in great works, 
not by the inward impulsion which inclines man to 
realize beauty, but from a calm and critical con- 
sideration that art should have its place and from a 
reluctance to be behind the past. But if people 
merely obeyed the pure and spontaneous love of what 
is beautiful, little would be done. One of the reasons 
recently advanced in favour of the scheme for the 
completion of the Louvre was that it would be a 
means of giving employment to artists. I should be 
curious to know whether Pericles advanced this 



The Future of Science. 389 

argument to the Athenians when the question of 
building the Parthenon was discussed. 

Eeflect for a moment on the consequences of this 
deplorable regime which subjects art, and more or 
less literature and poetry, to the fancy of individuals. 
In the productions of the mind, as in all other kinds, 
the question of supply and demand prevails, and it must 
necessarily happen that it is wealth which makes the 
demand. So that the man who contemplates living 
by intellectual production must first of all anticipate 
the demand of the rich man in order to comply with 
it. Now what does the rich man demand in the way 
of intellectual productions ? Is it serious literature ? 
Is it high philosophy, or, in the way of art, pure and 
severe productions, high moral creations ? Assuredly 
not. It is amusing literature ; serial stories, romances, 
clever plays in which his opinions are nattered, and 
so on. Thus, with the rich man regulating the 
literary and artistic production by his tastes, which 
are pretty well known, and these tastes being as a 
rule (there are a few noble exceptions) for frivolous 
literature and for art unworthy of the name, it was 
bound to happen that such a state of things would 
lower literature, art, and science. For with the rich 
man's taste setting the value of things, a jockey or a 
danseuse who correspond to this taste are persons of 
more value than the savant or the philosopher, whose 
works he does not want. That is why a composer of 
novels for serials may make a brilliant fortune and 
attain what is called a position in the world, while a 
real savant, had he achieved the distinction of a 
Bopper or Lassen, could not make a living out of his 
works. 

I mean by plutocracy a state of society in which 
wealth is the principal thing, in which one can do 
nothing unless one is rich, in which the chief object 
of ambition is to become rich, in which capacity and 
morality are generally valued (and more or less 
accurately) by a money standard, so that the best 
criterion of the elite of a nation is the cess-rate. 



390 The Future of Science. 

It will not, I imagine, be questioned that the society 
of the present day combines these different charac- 
teristics. That being granted, I maintain that all 
the faults of our intellectual development come from 
plutocracy, and that it is in this respect above all that 
our modern societies are inferior to Greek society. 
In fact, when wealth becomes the principal aim of 
human life, or at all events the necessary condition 
of all other ambitions, let us consider what will be 
the direction given to the mind. What is needed to 
become rich ? Is it to be a savant, a wise man, or a 
philosopher ? Not at all ; these are, upon the con- 
trary, more obstacles than anything else. He who 
devotes his life to science may rest assured that he 
will die in want, unless he has a patrimony, or unless 
he finds a means of utilizing his science, that is to say, 
unless he can make a livelihood out of pure science. 
For it will be observed that when a man makes a 
living by intellectual labour, it is not as a rule his 
true science that he brings into play, but his inferior 
qualities. M. Lebronne has made more by compiling 
second-rate elementary books than by the admirable 
researches which have rendered his name famous. 
Yico earned his living by composing prose and poetic 
pieces of the most contemptible rhetoric for princes 
and nobles, and could not find a publisher for his 
Science Nouvelle. So true is it that it is not the 
intrinsic value of things which constitutes their value, 
but the relation which they bear to those who hold 
the purse-strings. I may without vanity consider 
myself to possess as much capacity as any clerk or 
shopman. Yet the latter are able, in serving purely 
material interests, to gain an honest living, while I, 
who appeal to the soul, I, the priest of true religion, 
do not, in sober truth, know where I am to look for 
my daily bread next year. 

The profound truth of the Greek intelligence is 
derived, as it seems to me, from the fact that riches 
constituted, in their highly organized civilization, 
merely a motive of itself, but not a necessary condi- 



The Future of Science. 39 1 

tion to any other ambition. Hence arose the perfection 
of spontaneousness in the development of individual 
characters. A man was a poet or a philosopher 
because it was part of his human nature, and because 
he was specially endowed in that way. With us, 
upon the contrary, there is a tendency imposed upon 
whomsoever seeks to make a situation for himself in 
external life. The faculties which he must cultivate 
are those which serve to make rich : the industrial 
spirit and practical intelligence. Now these faculties 
are of very small value : they do not make a man 
better, or more elevated, or more clear-sighted in 
divine things ; quite the contrary. A man devoid of 
worth or morality, selfish and lazy, will be more likely 
to make his fortune upon the Stock Exchange than 
one who concerns himself with serious matters. That 
is not just, and therefore it will disappear. plutocracy, 
then, is not very favourable to the legitimate develop- 
ment of intelligence. England, the country of wealth, 
is of all civilized countries the one in which you find 
the minimum of the philosophical development of 
the intelligence. The nobles in former times regarded 
it as beneath their dignity to concern themselves 
with literature. The rich generally have coarse 
tastes and attach the idea of good form (bon ton) to 
matters which are ridiculous or purely of convention. 
A gentleman rider, however insignificant he is, may 
pass for a model of fashion. But I call him in so 
many words a fool. 

Plutocracy, in another order of ideas, is the source 
of all our wars, because of the evil feelings it inspires 
among those whom fate has made poor. The latter, 
in truth, seeing that they are nothing because they 
possess nothing, direct all their activity towards this 
one aim ; and as, in many cases, this is slow, difficult, 
and even impossible, evil thoughts germ ; jealousy 
and hatred of the rich, the idea of stripping him of 
what he possesses. The remedy for this is not to 
contrive so that the poor may become rich, nor to 
excite this desire in him, but so to act that riches 



392 The Future of Science. 

may become a secondary and insignificant thing ; that 
"without it one may he very happy, very great, very 
noble, and very handsome ; that without it one may 
become influential and highly esteemed in the State. 
The remedy, in other words, is not to excite among 
men appetites which all cannot satisfy, but to destroy 
this appetite or to change the object of it, seeing that 
this object does not belong to the essence of human 
nature ; but that, on the contrary, it impedes the 
proper development of it. 






The Future of Science. 393 



CHAPTER XXL 

Science being one of the true elements of humanity, 
it is independent of all social and fixed form like 
human nature. No revolution will destroy it, for no 
revolution will change the deep-rooted instincts of 
man. Doubtless one can, while devoting oneself to 
it, find spare moments for other duties ; but this 
must be only a suspending not an abrogation of the 
worship. A man must maintain the elevated and 
ideal value of science even when attending to other 
and more pressing duties. There are, I admit, 
sciences which may be termed umbratiles, which are 
the better for security and peace. Only a M. de 
Sacy could have published in the terrible year of 
1793, at the Louvre printing-press, a work upon 
Persian antiquities and upon the coins of the Sassa- 
nides kings. But, taking human intelligence in the 
mass, estimating progress by the movement accom- 
plished in ideas, we are led to say : God's will be 
done ! and we recognize the fact that a three days' 
revolution does more for the progress of the human 
mind than a generation of the Academie des Inscrip- 
tions. 

If there is one commonplace to which facts give 
the lie more than to another, it is that a revolu- 
tionary period is very unpropitious for mental labour, 
that literature, in order to produce masterpieces, has 
need of calm and leisure, and that the arts deserve 
in reality the classic epithet of " friends of peace." 
History demonstrates, upon the contrary, that action, 



394 The Future of Science. 

war, and rumours of war are the true medium in 
which humanity develops itself, that genius only 
pats out its full vegetation amid the storm, and that 
all the great creations of thought have appeared in 
troublous times. Of all ages, the sixteenth century 
is beyond doubt that in which the human mind dis- 
played the most energy and activity in all directions ; 
it is the creative century par excellence. There was 
a want of regularity in it, no doubt ; it was a thick 
and luxuriant growth amid which art had not, as yet, 
traced paths. But what fertility we have in this 
the century of Luther and of Eaphael, of Michael 
Angelo and of Ariosto, of Montaigne and of Erasmus, 
of Galileo and of Copernic, of Cardan and of Vanini. 
All branches of learning and knowledge are embraced 
in it : philology, mathematics, astronomy, physical 
science and philosophy. And yet this wonderful 
century, in which the modern spirit was definitely 
constituted, was the century of universal struggles 
and contentions : religious, political, literary, scien- 
tific. Italy herself, which then took the lead of all 
Europe in the paths of investigation, was the theatre 
of barbarous wars such as the future, let us hope, 
will never see again. The sacking of Rome did not 
disturb the brush of Michael Angelo ; left an orphan 
at the age of six, mutilated at Brescia, Tartaglia 
worked out mathematics for himself. Rhetoricians 
alone can prefer the calm and artificial work of the 
ivriter to the burning and genuine work which was 
an act, and stood out in its day as the spontaneous 
cry of an heroic or impassioned soul. iEschylus had 
been a soldier at Salamis before being the poet. It 
was in camp and amid the risks of a life of adventure 
that Descartes thought out his method. Would 
Dante have composed in an atmosphere of studious 
ease those cantos of his which are the most original 
in a period of ten centuries ? Are not the sufferings 
of the poet, his wrath, his passions, and his exile half 
the poem ? Can one not feel in Milton the man 
who has been wounded in political strife ? Would 



Tlie Future of Science. 395 

Chateaubriand have been what he is if the nine- 
teenth century had been an unbroken continuation 
of the eighteenth ? 

The customary state of Athens was one of terror. 
Never were political habits more violent, or the 
security of the individual less. The enemy was 
always a few leagues off; not a year elapsed but 
what he appeared at the gates, but what it was 
necessary to go out and fight against him. And 
within, what an interminable series of revolutions ! 
To-day an exile, to-morrow sold as a slave ; then 
regretted, honoured as a god, liable each day to be 
dragged before the most pitiless revolutionary tri- 
bunal, the Athenian, who amid this life of rush and 
uncertainty, was never sure of the morrow, pro- 
duced with a spontaneousness which overwhelms us 
with surprise. Let us not forget that the Parthenon 
and the Propyloea statues of Phidias, the Dialogues 
of Plato, the stinging satires of Aristophanes, were 
the work of an epoch very similar to 1793, of a 
political state c-f things which entailed, in proportion 
to the number of people concerned, more violent 
deaths than our first revolution at its paroxysm. 
/Where in these masterpieces do we find a trace of 
the terror ? Some strange timidity seems to have 
taken hold of our minds. As soon as the smallest 
cloud appears upon the horizon, everybody withdraws 
himself inside his shell, so to speak, and is overcome 
with fear? " What can be done in times like 
these ? We want security. There is no inclination 
to produce anything, when there is no certainty as 
to the morrow." But we might remember that the 
morrow has never been certain since the beginning 
of the world, and that if the great men whose labours 
have made us what we are had reasoned in this way, 
the human mind would have remained for ever sterile. 
Montaigne ran the risk of assassination as he walked 
round his chateau, but this did not prevent him from 
writing his Essais. This fatal craving for repose has 
come from the long period of peace we have gone 



396 The Future of Science. 

through, and which has had so great an influence 
upon the current of our ideas. The masculine gene- 
ration which grew to manhood in 1815, had the good 
fortune to be cradled amid great achievements and 
great perils, and to have had a high-spirited struggle 
to carry on as a training for its youth. But we, who 
began to think in 1830, born beneath the influence of 
Mercury, first saw the world as a machine in regular 
working order ; peace seemed to us as being the 
natural medium of the human mind ; our only expe- 
rience of struggle and contention was under the 
petty proportions of a purely personal opposition. 
The least disturbance surprises us. Our horizon is 
limited to the timid preservation of what our fathers 
have accomplished. Woe to the generation which 
has only had experience of a regular state of adminis- 
tration, whose sole conception of life is as a rest and 
of art as an enjoyment. Great achievements never 
are accomplished in these lukewarm periods. But 
it would not do to deny all value to the productions 
of a period of calm and regularity. They are highly 
finished, sensible, reasonable, full of a delicate criti- 
cism ; they are agreeable to read in hours of leisure ; 
but there is nothing decided or original about them, 
nothing which breathes militant humanity, nothing 
which approaches the hardy works of those won- 
derful ages in which all the elements of humanity 
while in a state of ebullition appear alternately upon 
the surface. The universe created only in its primi- 
tive periods and beneath the reign of chaos. Mon- 
sters could not come into being under the peaceful 
regime of equilibrium which has succeeded the 
tempests of the earliest ages. 

It is not, therefore, either material ease or even 
liberty which contribute much to the originality and 
the energy of intellectual development ; it is the 
medium of great things, it is universal activity, it is 
the spectacle of revolutions, it is the passion developed 
in combat. The work of the mind would only be 
seriously threatened when humanity came to be too 



The Future of Science. 397 

much at its ease. Thank God ! that day is still far 
distant. 

A newspaper some time since called upon the 
National Assembly to decree the right to rest; an 
ingenious metaphor the meaning of which no one 
could mistake. No doubt, if life were to be regarded 
merely as a period of rest and pleasure, we might 
well regard the agitation of thought as a curse, 
and as perverse those, who in order to satisfy their 
feeling of unrest, disturbed this pleasant slumber. 
Eevolutions can be only absurd and odious dis- 
turbances in the eyes of those who do not believe in 
progress. Without the idea of progress, all the ideas 
of humanity are incomprehensible. If human life 
had no other horizon than to vegetate somehow ; if 
society were merely an aggregation of persons each 
one living for himself and invariably subject to the 
same vicissitudes ; if every one was born, lived, and 
died in much the same manner, the best thing to do 
would be to put humanity to sleep and patiently 
submit to this commonplace monotony. There are 
some who think it a good thing that the time of 
religious controversies is over. For my own part, 
I regret it, and I regret the disappearance of that 
most beneficent Protestant controversy which, for 
more than two centuries, sharpened up and kept on 
the qui-vive the mind of all civilized Europe ; I regret 
the time when Turenne and Lesdiguiere were in 
controversy, when a book by Claude or Jurieu was 
an event, when Caton and Turretin, matched against 
each other, arrested the attention of all Europe. 
The wars of religion are, after all, the most reason- 
able of all wa.rs, and henceforward they will be the 
only ones such. We must be fair, and admit that 
never was life more free than from 1830 to 1848, and 
we shall perhaps have to wait a long time before we 
have a regime affording so large a share of liberty. 
But can it be said that during this period humanity 
was enriched by many new ideas, that morality, 
intelligence, and true religion made any real pro 



398 The Future of Science. 

gress ? Just as the monastic life, where all is cut 
and dried in advance, destroys the picturesque part 
of life and effaces all originality, so a regular civiliza- 
tion, tracing too narrow a road for existence, and 
placing constant fetters upon individual liberty, is 
more detrimental to spontaneousness than the 
arbitrary regime (172). " This formalist liberty," 
says M. Villemain, " engenders more petty vexations 
than great struggles, more intrigues than great 
passions." The human mind was infinitely more 
active in the years of compression of the Kestoration 
than in the years of reasonable liberty which followed 
1830. Poetry became egotistical, and its sole value 
was as a delicate accompaniment of pleasure ; 
originality was out of place. It was admired and 
sought out with curiosity in the past, but it was re- 
garded with contumely in the present. Keen interest 
was felt in the well-defined figures to be found in 
history, and no mercy was shown to the contem- 
poraries whom the future will regard with the same 
interest. Thus a regime which realized the ideal of 
eclecticism will get the reputation of being a some- 
what barren period as regards the history of human 
intelligence. 

Upon the other hand, an epoch may, so long as it 
emerges from the commonplace, give birth to the 
most original and contradictory apparitions. Have 
we not seen the selfsame revolution producing at 
one and the same time the true formula of the rights 
of man, and the new symbol of liberty, equality, and 
fraternity, and, upon the other hand, the massacres 
of September and the scaffold in permanence ? Did 
not the same century give birth to the Talmud and 
the Gospel, the most fearful monument of intellectual 
depression and the loftiest creation of the moral 
sense — to Jesus upon the one hand and Hillel and 
Schammai on the other? Anything maybe antici- 
pated in these great crises of the human mind, 
whether in the way of what is sublime or absurd. 
It is only the colourless productions of periods of 



Ths Future of Science. 399 

repose which are consistent with themselves. The 
appearance of Christ would be inexplicable in a 
logical and regular state of things ; it is compre- 
hensible during the singular crises which at that 
period characterized the reasoning sense of Judaea. 
Those solemn periods during which human nature, 
in a state of exaltation, half beside itself, emits the 
most extravagant sounds, are the periods of great 
revelations. If the same circumstances occurred 
again, the same phenomena would reappear, and we 
should again see Christs, not probably represented 
by individuals, but by a new spirit, which would be 
of spontaneous growth, without perhaps being per- 
sonified so exclusively in any one particular person. 

It must not be imagined that human nature is so 
clearly marked off as to be unable to extend beyond 
a commonplace horizon. There are rents in this 
horizon, through which the eye pierces the infinite ; 
there are vistas which go direct beyond the goal. 
There may spring up among the stronger races and 
at periods of crises monsters in the intellectual order, 
which, while participating in human nature, ex- 
aggerate it so much in one sense that they catch 
a glimpse of the unknown worlds. These beings 
were less rare than is generally believed in the 
primitive epochs. It may be that more of these 
strange natures, placed upon the limit of man and 
open to different combinations, will one day appear. 
But assuredly these ancestors will not be born in 
our jog-trot time. A narrow and fixed conception 
of life weakens the creative faculties. Civilization, 
owing to the extreme definition of rights which it 
introduces into society, and by the fetters which 
it imposes upon individual liberty, becomes in the 
long run a very irksome burden, and deprives man 
in a great measure of the keen sense of his inde- 
pendence. I can understand German writers re- 
gretting from this point of view the old Germanic 
life and deploring the Roman and Christian influence 
which changed its rough-and-ready sincerity. Com- 



400 The Future of Science. 

pare the modern man, swathed about with a thousand 
clauses of law, unable to take a step without being 
confronted by a sergeant or a regulation, with Antar 
in his desert, knowing no other law than the fire of 
his race, dependent only upon himself, in a world 
where no idea of penal law or of coercia exercised in 
the name of society exists. 

All is fruitful except common sense. The prophet, 
the apostle, the poet of the early ages would be re- 
garded as madmen in the midst of the colourless 
mediocrity in which human life is imprisoned. A 
man who shed tears without any apparent cause, who 
wept over the universal sorrow, or laughed with a 
long, mysterious laugh, would be shut up in a mad- 
house because he did not make his thoughts fit to 
our accustomed moulds. And yet I would ask why 
this man is not nearer to God than a self-sufficient 
little tradesman, huddled up in the corner of his 
shop. How touching is the custom prevalent in 
Judea and Arabia, where the lunatic is honoured as 
a favourite of God, as a man who sees into the world 
beyond ! The Soufi and the Corybant believed, in 
losing their senses, that they touched the divinity; 
the instinct of different peoples has sought for reve- 
lations from the hallowed state of slumber. The 
prophets and the inspired men of ancient times 
would have been classed by our physicians as victims 
of hallucination. So true is it that an undetermined 
line divides the legitimate and the exorbitant exer- 
cise of the human faculties, and that they cover a 
serial scale of which the centre alone is attainable. 
The same instinct, in the one case normal, in the 
other perverse, inspired Dante and the Marquis de 
Sade. The greatest of religions was marked at its 
cradle by incidents of the purest enthusiasm and by 
the extravagances of convulsionists equal to anything 
to be seen among the most exalted of sectaries. 

We must, therefore, resign ourselves to the fact 
that the most beautiful of things are born amid tears; 
sorrow is not too high a price to pay for beauty. 



The Future of Science. 401 

The new faith will only be born amidst terrible dis- 
turbances, and when the human intelligence has 
been checkmated, thrown off the rails, so to speak, 
by events as yet unparalleled. We have not yet 
suffered sufficiently to see the kingdom of heaven. 
When a few millions of men have died of hunger, 
when thousands have devoured one another, when 
the brains of the others, carried off their balance of 
these darksome scenes, have plunged into extrava- 
gances of one kind and another, then life will begin 
anew. Suffering has been for man the mistress and 
the revealer of great things. Order is an end, not a 
beginning. 

So true is it that institutions bear their best fruit 
before they have become too official. It would be 
very foolish to imagine that now there is a discus- 
sion forum on the Quai d'Orsay, there will be greater 
political speakers. The first Ecole Normale was 
unquestionably regulated with less care than that of 
to-day, and had no teachers to compare with the 
present ones. And yet the generation it produced 
is beyond all comparison with what is produced now. 
An institution only possesses its full strength when 
it corresponds to the real and clearly felt want which 
led to its establishment. At first, it may appear to 
be imperfect, and people are too ready to imagine 
that when the period of tranquillity and of peaceful 
organization comes, it will do wonders. This is all 
a mistake; the petty improvements spoil the work; 
the motive force disappears, and the whole becomes 
petrified. Official regulations do not impart life, aud 
I am convinced for my part that an education like 
ours will always have the defects so often imputed 
to it of being mechanical and artificial. Eegulations 
are supposed to take the place of the spirit, to achieve 
with men devoid of self-devotion or morality what 
could be accomplished with men who were devoted 
and religious. This is attempting the impossible ; 
life cannot be simulated ; no machinery however well 
combined will produce more than an automaton. 

2d 



402 The Future of Science. 

This evil is not to be corrected by regulations, in- 
asmuch as they are the very source of the mis- 
chief. Eule existed, it is true, at the outset, but 
it was vivified by the spirit, just as the Christian 
ceremonies, which have become a mere series of 
closely regulated movements, were in the beginning 
true and sincere. What a difference there is be- 
tween chanting a tag of Latin called the Epistle and 
reading in company the Correspondence of colleagues, 
between a piece of consecrated bread which no longer 
has any meaning and the feast of early times ! The 
primitive gathering, the agape, had no need to be 
regulated, for it was spontaneous. Painting pro- 
duced masterpieces before there was such a thing as 
a yearly exhibition. Men of letters and artists did 
not enjoy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, the amount of dignity they should have done, 
and therefore, now that they have obtained the place 
which is due to them, they will do much better. 
These are erroneous conclusions, for they presuppose 
that the regulating of the external conditions of 
intellectual production is favourable to it, whereas 
this production depends solely upon the abundance 
of the inner and living sap of humanity. 

Some one said, speaking of the beatific calm in 
which Austria was previous to 1848 : " What can you 
expect ; these people are foolish enough to be happy." 
That is not so ; it is not a vulgar thing to be happy. 
Only the high-strung souls know how to attain hap- 
piness. But to be at one's ease is the most prosaic 
of aspirations. None but a simpleton can be so eager 
for the regime of a full stomach. 

As soon as a country begins to show signs of agita- 
tion, we are inclined to regard its condition as 
unsatisfactory. If, upon the contrary, it is in a dead 
calm, we say, and in this case with more truth, 
" This country feels the want of action." Agitation 
appears to be a regrettable transition and repose 
seems to be the aim ; but repose never comes, and 
if it did that would be the worst thing that could 



The Future of Science. 403 



happen. No doubt, order is a desirable thing, and 
all efforts should tend towards it ; but order is only 
to be desired in view of progress. When humanity 
has reached its rational state, but not till then, revo- 
lutions will appear detestable, and pity will be due 
to the age which stands in need of them. 

The aim of humanity is not repose ; it is intellec- 
tual and moral perfection. How can people talk of 
repose, I sbould like to know, when they have the 
infinite to traverse and the perfect to reach? Humanity 
will only repose when it has reached the perfect. It 
would be too strange if a few profane persons could, 
from motives of £ s. d. or personal interest, arrest 
the progress of the mind, the true religious progress. 
The most dangerous state for humanity would be that 
in which the majority, finding itself quite at ease and 
not wishing to be disturbed, should retain its repose 
at the cost of thought and of an oppressed minority. 
When that occurred, the only safety would be in the 
moral instincts of human nature, which, no doubt, 
would not be found wanting. 

The traction force of humanity has hitherto resided 
in the minority. Those who find themselves well off 
in the world as it is cannot like movement, unless 
they raise themselves above self-interested views. 
Thus the greater become the number of the well-to- 
do, the harder is it to stir humanity ; it has to be 
dragged along. The good of humanity being the 
supreme aim, the minority must not scruple to lead 
along against its will, if needs be, the stupid or selfish 
majority. But in order to do that it must have 
reason on its side, otherwise it is an abominable 
tyranny. The essential thing is not that the will 
of the great majority should be carried out, but that 
right should be done. What ! there are people who, 
in order to make a few sous the more, would sacri- 
fice humanity and country, who would have the right 
to say : " You shall go no further ; do not teach this, 
•as it might stir up men's minds and be injurious to 
our business ? " The only portion 01 humanity which 



404 The Future of Science. 

deserves to be taken into consideration is the active 
and living part, that is to say, the part which is not 
well to do. It will, therefore, be quite in vain that 
our fathers, having become reasonable, will beg us no 
longer to think and to keep ourselves quiet, for fear 
of throwing the delicate machine out of gear. We 
ask for ourselves the liberty which they have taken 
to themselves. We will let them be converted, and 
we will appeal from Voltaire out of sorts to Yoltaire 
in good health. 

Reflect, then, for a moment upon what you aro 
attempting to do, and remember that it is a sheer 
impossibility, that which since the beginning of the 
world all intelligent conservatives have attempted 
without success ; to check the human mind, to 
deaden intellectual activity, to persuade youth that 
all thought is dangerous and leads to evil. You have 
had your liberty of thought, so will we ; we will 
admire, as you have taught us to do, the great men 
of the past and the illustrious promoters of thought 
whom now you repudiate. We will remind you of 
what you have taught, we will protect you against 
yourselves. You are old and sickly, and you can 
become converted ; but we, your pupils in liberalism, 
we, young and full of life, we to whom the future 
belongs, why should we accept a share in your terrors ? 
How can you expect that a rising generation should 
be content to shrivel up with ill-humour and fear ? 
Hope is a thing of our age, and we prefer succumb- 
ing in the struggle to dying of cold or fear. 

There is something really comical in this ill- 
humour which has suddenly been manifested against 
the free thinkers, as if, after all, they could help the 
result of their speculations, as if they could have 
done different from what they have, as if they were 
free to see things different from what they are. One 
might have supposed that it was out of pure caprice 
and fancy that they suddenly attacked the beliefs 
of the past, and as if it depended upon them whether 
the world retained its faith or not. A book only 



The Future of Science. 405 

succeeds when it responds to the secret thought of 
all ; an author does not destroy faiths ; if they appa- 
rently fall beneath his blows, it was because they 
were already very much shaken. I have met people 
who, imagining that the mischief comes from Ger- 
many, regretted that there was no inquisition against 
Kant, Hegel, Strauss. Sheer fatality this ! You 
admire Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire, and you 
anathematize those who, without intending to imitate 
them, carry on their work, and if there was in our 
day a Luther, a Descartes or a Voltaire, you would 
treat them as enemies of society, as dangerous inno- 
vators. You condemn the eighteenth century which 
you formerly liked so well ; you should, to be logical, 
condemn the Renaissance, the whole modern spirit 
and fatality into the bargain. You may condemn 
and curse as much as you please, but I defy you to 
deaden the human mind beneath a perpetual charm, 
I defy you to persuade it to remain idle, to rest 
motionless for fear of risk, for that is death. We will 
not allow it, we will cry out to the people : " It is 
false, it is false, you are being led astray," rather 
than tolerate this irreverent way of treating truth as 
being of less importance than the tranquillity of a 
few cowards. 

The whole secret of the intellectual situation of 
the moment is, therefore, in this fatal truth, viz. 
that intellectual labour has been, degraded to the 
rank of a pleasure, and that in the day of serious 
things it has become insignificant like the pleasures 
themselves. It is not, therefore, the fault of events, 
for they should rather have had the effect of awaking 
men's minds and stirring them up to thought ; the 
whole fault is in the general depression brought 
about by the exclusive attention given to repose ; 
the shameful hedonism of which we gather the fruits 
and of which communistic follies are, after all, but 
the extreme consequence. There are times when 
to amuse oneself is a crime, or at all events an 
impossibility. The silly literature of coteries and 



406 The Future of Science. 

salons, the science of the inquisitive and of amateurs 
is much depreciated by these terrible spectacles ; 
the serial story loses much of its interest when it 
appears in a paper containiug the recital of the real 
and passionate drama of the hour ; the amateur may 
well fear to see his collections carried off or blown 
all over the place by the wind of the storm. In 
order to appreciate these peaceful tastes, a man need 
have nothing to do and nothing to fear ; to seek out 
such innocent diversions, time must hang heavy on 
the hand. But nothing of that which contributes 
to the awakening of humanity is lost to the true 
progress of the mind ; philosophical thought is never 
more free than in the great days of history. Intel- 
lectual exercise is more vigorous at those times, for 
it is less tainted with amusement. It is imperative 
that the world should school itself to maintain, amid 
no matter what cataclysms, the value of intellectual 
culture, of science, of art, and of philosophy. What 
is good is always good, and if we wait for tranquillity, 
we may have to wait a loDg time. If our fathers had 
reasoned in this way, they would have folded their 
arms and done nothing, and we should not enjoy 
their inheritance. And what matters it, after all, 
whether to-morrow be sure or not ? What matters 
it whether the future belongs to us or does not ? Is 
the sky less blue, Beatrice less beautiful, or God less 
great ? If the world were to collapse, it would still 
be well to philosophize, and I am convinced that 
if ever our planet is the victim of a fresh cataclysm, 
which at this moment seems impending, it will find 
some few minds of men which, amid this general 
upheaval and chaos, will have disinterested and 
scientific thoughts, and which, forgetting their im- 
pending death, will discuss the phenomenon, and 
endeavour to draw from it some consequences bear- 
ing upon the general system of things (173). 



The Future of Science. 407 



CHAPTEE XXIT. 

I ask the reader to pardon numberless views to some 
extent exaggerated which he will have encountered 
in the preceding chapter, and I beg him to judge 
this book not by an isolated passage, but by its 
general spirit. A man can only give expression to 
his mind by the successive delineation of various 
points of view, each of which is only true when taken 
as a whole. A single page is, as a matter of neces- 
sity, false ; for it expresses only one thing, and truth 
is only the compromise between an infinity of things 
(174). Now what I have sought above all to inculcate 
in this book is faith in reason, faith in human nature. 
" I would have it serve to react against the sort of 
moral enfeeblement which is the malady of the rising 
generation ; I would have it guide back into the true 
road of life some of those enervated souls which com- 
plain of being lacking in faith, which know not which 
way to go and which search everywhere in vain for an 
object of worship and devotion. Why complain so 
bitterly that in the world, as it is constituted, there 
is not enough employment for all intelligences ? Is 
not serious and calm study available ? and does not 
it contain a hope and a career within the reach of 
each one of us. Armed with this, we can endure 
the evil days, without feeling the weight of them, 
we can work out our own destiny, we can make a 
noble use of life (175). That is what I have done," 
added the noble martyr to science from whom I have 
borrowed these lines, " and what I would do again 



408 The Future of Science. 

if I had to recommence my journey. Blind and 
suffering without hope of recovery, almost un- 
ceasingly, I can bear this testimony which, from my 
lips, will not be open to cavil : there is in the world 
something better than fortune, better than health 
itself, and that is devotion to science." 

I know that in the eyes of many people, this faith 
in science and in the human intelligence will seem 
a piece of absurdity, and that it will not please those 
who, too clever to believe in the truth, regard scep- 
ticism itself as too doctrinal, and who, without pay- 
ing too much heed to these cumbrous categories of 
truth and error, treat the enjoyments of life and the 
calculations of intrigue as the serious business of life. 
There is nothing but raillery for those who concern 
themselves with the reality of things, and who, in 
order to form an opinion upon morality, religion, 
social and philosophical questions, are so simple 
minded as to reflect -upon objective reasons, instead 
of addressing themselves to the much easier criterion 
of interests and of good taste (176). Only the form 
of expression is taken into account ; the intrinsic 
consideration of things is regarded as useless and in 
bad taste ; or else, if it is thought distingue to assume 
the air of a believer, people accept some ready-made 
system, the absurdities of which they see very clearly, 
just because they think it amusing to admit these 
absurdities in order to make sport of reason. In this 
way, a man becomes all the grosser in the object of 
his belief as he has been more sceptical and has 
shown more levity in his motive for accepting it. It 
would be bad "form" to ask oneself for a moment 
whether it is true ; it is accepted as one accepts a 
certain shape of coat or hat ; one becomes super- 
stitious to a degree because one has been sceptical 
— not to say frivolous. Pronounced scepticism has 
never been very prevalent in France ; our sceptics, 
to begin with Montaigne and Pascal, have been 
either men of wit or believers ; two forms of scep- 
ticism very close to each other and mutually inter- 



The Future of Science. 409 

dependent. Pascal sought to borrow from Montaigne 
his sceptical arguments and give them the first place 
in his Apologia : " One cannot," he says, " fail to see 
with pleasure how, in this author, the magnificent 
reasoning is so invincibly rumpled by his own arms 
. . . and one would love with one's whole heart the 
ministry of so great a vengeance, if ... " (177) 

When scepticism has become a fashion, it does 
not imply penetration of mind nor keenness of criti- 
cism, but much rather dulness and incapacity to 
understand, the truth. "It is very convenient," 
says Fichte, " to cover with the high-sounding name 
of scepticism lack of intelligence. It is pleasant to 
pass off this lack of intelligence which prevents us 
from seizing the truth for marvellous penetration of 
mind, which reveals to us motives of doubt unknown 
and inaccessible to the rest of mankind " (178). It 
is easy, by placing oneself as outside all dogma, to 
play the part of one in advance of his age, and the 
stupid, who are more afraid of being dupes than of 
anything else, carry this even further. Just as in 
the eighteenth century it was the fashion not to 
believe in feminine honour, so in our day there is 
not a provincial person with pretensions who does 
not make a glory of having no political creed and 
of not being a believer in the probity of those who 
govern. This is one way of having one's revenge, 
and also of making the world believe that one is 
initiated into deep secrets. 

It is the honour of philosophy to have always had 
as its enemies the frivolous and the immoral. Who, 
not having in themselves the instinct of what is 
beautiful, boldly declare that human nature is ugly 
and bad, and embrace with frenzy any doctrine 
which humiliates man and keeps him entirely under 
dependence. Therein lies the secret of the faith of 
the " golden youth" of the Catholic creed, thoroughly 
sceptical, hard and scornful, which finds amusement 
in calling itself Catholic, because by so doing it puts 
an insult the more upon modern ideas. . That dis- 



410 The Future of Science. 

penses it from harbouring noble thoughts ; by dint 
of saying to oneself that human nature is vile and 
corrupt, one in the end resigns oneself to this and 
takes it in good part (179). The Church will be 
indulgent for errors of the heart, and then it is so 
easy for aristocratic fatuity to believe that the mass 
of mankind is absurd and ill-intentioned, and to have 
under control a potent authority to cut short the 
reasonings of these impertinent philosophers, who 
dare to believe in truth and beauty. sordid souls, 
how dark you are within, seeing how few are the 
things you love ! And you will be called believers, 
while we are called impious ! This is more than can 
be endured. 

God forbid that I should speak slightingly of those 
who, devoid of the critical sense and impelled by 
very powerful religious motives, are attached to one 
or other of the great established systems of faith. I 
love the simple faith of the peasant, the serious con- 
viction of the priest. I am convinced, for the honour 
of human nature, that Christianity is, with the im- 
mense majority of those who profess it, a purely noble 
form of life. But I cannot help saying that, for a 
great part of aristocratic youth, Catholicism is merely 
a form of scepticism and frivolity. The first basis of 
that sort of Catholicism is scorn, malediction, and 
irony ; malediction against anything which has caused 
the human mind to progress and which has broken 
the old chain. Compelled to hate whatever has 
aided the modern spirit to shake itself free of Catholi- 
cism, these frenzied partisans are full of hatred for 
everything and everybody : for Louis XIV. who, by 
constituting the central unity of France, worked so 
efficaciously for the triumph of the modern spirit, as 
for Luther, for science as for the industrial spirit, for 
humanity in short. They think that they are offer- 
ing an apologia for Christianity when they make 
sport of all that is serious and philosophical. 

It is impossible for me to express the physiological 
and psychological effect this sort of parody which 



The Future of Science. 411 



has become so much the fashion in provincial circles 
of late years has upon me. It irritates and annoys 
me beyond endurance. If. is so easy to elude in 
this way anything serious or original. Barbarians 
that you are, do you forget that we have had Voltaire, 
and that we might fling in your face Father Nico- 
demus, Abraham Chaumeix, Sabathier and Nonotte ? 
We do not do so, because you have told us that it 
was unfair. But why, then, use against us a weapon 
which you have reproached us with employing? Do 
you suppose that if we wanted to make sport of 
theologians, we should not have as fine an opening 
as you, when, in order to raise a laugh from the 
triflers, you put silly arguments into the mouths of 
the philosophers ? I happened to take up a pamphlet 
against eclecticism, in which Descartes is repre- 
sented as a fool whose sole contribution to philosophy 
is the question " whether reason is not a thing which 
reasons falsely," Kant as an idol who does not 
know whether he exists and whether the world 
exists, Fichte as an impertinent fellow who asserts 
that " he, Fichte, is at once God, nature, and 
humanity," all the philosophers, in short, as greater 
lunatics than the magicians, the alchemists, and the 
astrologers. I can fancy the light laughter which 
the reading of these charming remarks would have 
excited at some country fireside. The author may 
be assured of making his fortune much better than 
dull-witted persons like us who are so stupid as to 
take things seriously. . . . 

It is time that all parties who have truth at heart 
should abandon such unscientific ways. There is, I 
know, a philosophical form of merriment, which could 
not be suppressed without doing injury to human 
nature ; and that is the merriment of the Greeks, 
who liked to weep and to laugh over the same sub- 
ject, to see the comedy after the tragedy, and often 
the parody of the very piece they had just been wit- 
nessing. But pleasantry in scientific matters is 
always unreal, for it is the exclusion of elevated 



412 The Future of Science. 

criticism. Nothing is ridiculous in the works of 
humanity; to give this aspect to serious things, 
they must be looked at from a narrow side, and what 
is majestic and true in them must be neglected. 
Voltaire makes mock of the Bible, because he has 
not the intuition of the primitive works of the human 
mind. He would, in the same way, have made mock 
of the Vedas, and no doubt of Homer. Banter com- 
pels one to regard things solely from their gross 
aspect ; it is a bar against delicate distinctions. The 
first step in the philosophical career is to become 
proof against ridicule. If a man allows himself to 
become subject to vulgar jesters, and to take any 
account of their frivolities, he shuts himself out from 
all moral beauty, from all lofty aspirations, from all 
elevation of character, for all these can be turned 
into ridicule. The jester has the immense advantage 
of being dispensed from furnishing proofs ; he is free 
to cast ridicule, at his will, upon what he pleases, 
and this without appeal, at all events in countries 
where, as in France, tyranny is accepted as legitimate 
authority. The only things which escape ridicule 
are those which are commonplace and vulgar, so that 
he who is weak enough to keep clear of anything 
which may lend itself to ridicule, ipso facto cuts him- 
self off from all that is lofty. The ages of reflection 
risk seeing the noblest sentiments and the most 
sublime conditions of the soul distorted by stupid 
plagiarists, the ridicule of whom sometimes recoils 
upon the types which they aspire to imitate. A 
certain amount of courage is required to resist the 
reaction which these coxcombs excite among the 
right-minded. It is unreasonable to resign oneself 
to commonplace vulgarity, because in following up 
an elevated type, one runs the risk of resembling 
great men who have just missed their mark and the 
unsuccessful aspirants after genius. One may regret 
the time when a great man was fashioned without 
giving any thought to the matter, unconsciously so 
to speak; but the ridiculous attitude of a few weak- 



The Future of Science. 413 

headed persons cannot suffice to condemn those who 
with well-resolved and deliberate will set themselves 
to accomplish something great and noble. The false 
Eenes and the false Werthers should not cause us to 
denounce the true ones. How many timid and 
modest souls have been kept back from attaining the 
beautiful for fear of resembling them ! All praise to 
the Olympian thinker, who, pursuing in all things 
critical truth, has no need to become a dreamer in 
order to escape the platitude of the bourgeois life, or 
to become a bourgeois in order to avoid the ridicule 
of the dreamers. 

I sometimes regret that Moliere, when stigmatizing 
the absurdities of the Hotel de Eambouillet, laid 
himself open to the suspicion of setting up as models 
types inferior in one way to those which he ridiculed. 
The only defect in the pure affection of Armande and 
of Belise in the Femmes Savantes, even that of Cathos 
and of Madelon in the Precieuses Ridicules, is that it 
is affected, and serves as a cover to vacuousness under 
the guise of a ridiculous pathos. If it were true, it 
would be preferable to the commonplace love of 
Clitandre and of Henriette. I prefer even the affec- 
tation of what is elevated to mere triteness. Boileau 
makes game of Clelie, "that admirable young woman, 
who so conducted herself that she had not a lover 
but was. compelled to conceal himself under the guise 
of a friend; for otherwise they .would have been 
turned out of the house." Doubtless, subtlety is not 
truth ; but it is better to be ridiculous than vulgar, 
and taking refuge in commonplace is a very easy 
mode of escaping ridicule. It would be too much 
that superficial jesters should have the power of 
casting suspicion, whenever it pleased them, upon 
whatsoever is noble, pure and elevated, of treating 
enthusiasm as an extravagance, and morality as a 
dupery. One thing only does not lend itself to jest, 
and that is the atrocious. Let the mind travel over 
the scale of moral characters; jests may have been 
made of Socrates, Plato, Jesus Christ, God. Men 



414 The Future of Science. 

may have made mock of savants, poets, philosophers, 
religious men, politicians, plebeians, nobles, rich 
traders. No one has ever made mock of Nero or 
Robespierre. Laughter cannot, therefore, be a cri- 
terion. Action appears to many a means of avoiding 
the dupery to which frivolous people suppose that 
men of thought and sentiment fall victims. It seems 
as if the warrior, the politician, the financier are not 
so open to attack as the philosopher or the poet. 
But this is a mistake. All things equally lend them- 
selves to ridicule, and if there is one thing really 
serious, it is the critical thinker who looks at the 
objectivity of things ; for things are serious. Who 
has not felt, in presence of a flower which blooms, of 
a rivulet which is murmuring, of a bird watching 
over its brood, of a rock in the midst of the sea, that 
these things are sincere and true ? Who has not felt 
in certain moments of tranquillity, that the doubts 
which are raised as to human morality, are merely 
ways of searching beyond the limits of reason that 
which is within them, and of placing oneself in a 
false hypothesis for the pleasure of torturing oneself? 
Scepticism alone is entitled to jest, for it has no re- 
prisals to fear. In what respect is it open to attack, 
inasmuch as it is the first to make light of all thiugs ? 
But how can a believer who makes mock of another 
believer fail to see that he lays himself open, by the 
very fact of his being a believer, to the same ridicule ? 
Let us, therefore, leave to negation and frivolity the 
unenviable privilege of being invulnerable to attack, 
and let us glory in the fact that, by reason of our 
convictions and our seriousness, we lay ourselves open 
to the jests of the sceptical. 

Extreme reflection thus inevitably leads to a 
species of iusipidity and light scepticism, which would 
be the death of humanity if it became universal. Of 
all the intellectual states, this is the most dangerous 
and the most incurable. Those who are attacked by 
it are doomed to die. For how can they hope to 
survive it, the unhappy beings who do not believe in 






The Future of Science. 415 

serious things, who, if they attempted to shake off 
this intellectual paralysis, would be stopped by the 
after thought that they, too, are going to be included 
in the number of people at whom they have been in 
the habit of laughing. But if there is no cure for 
over-refining, humanity has methods of rejuvenation 
and of oblivion which are impossible for individuals. 
Young and keen generations, and sometimes even 
new races, are constantly supplying it with sap, and 
moreover this, by its very nature, could not last 
more than a few years as a social evil. For, as its 
essence is to take a purely arbitrary view of things, 
those who come after do not feel themselves bound 
by the views of the former ; upon the contrary, 
whatever is conventional provokes almost a reaction 
in the opposite direction ; it is impossible that a 
fashion should be durable. Thus what is serious and 
frivolous follow one upon the top of the other in the 
records of fashion ; frivolity in time becomes silly, 
and ridicule can be adapted to any subject. So that 
in time the world will make mock of these mockers 
and recover its liking for the serious life. Then will 
come an age made dogmatic by science ; people will 
recommence believing in the certain, and of resting 
their feet firmly upon things, when they know that 
they are on solid ground. 

Keligion, philosophy, morality, and politics all 
have their sceptics ; there are not any in the physical 
sciences (not at least as far as concerns that part of 
them which is definitely accepted or their method). 
The method of these sciences has thus become the 
criterion of practical certainty in the present day, 
and if the moral sciences seem to furnish results 
which are less positive, this is because they do not 
respond to that model of scientific certainty which 
they have formed for themselves. This is the sheet- 
anchor which will save our age from the shipwreck of 
scepticism ; scientific certainty is accepted, the only 
complaint being that this certaiuty is only applicable 
to so few subjects. Effort should all be concentrated 



416 The Future of Science. 

upon enlarging this circle, but the great thing is that 
the instrument is recognized, that people believe in 
the possibility of believing. My conviction is that 
results equally definite, though formulated in a 
different way and arrived at by different methods, 
will be attained in the moral sciences. There are 
some natures which find pleasure in torturing them- 
selves and in setting themselves insoluble problems. 
The only proof of the morality and seriousness of 
life is in our nature. To carry one's investigations 
beyond that and to doubt of the bases of human 
nature is to vex one's spirit designedly, is like irri- 
tating the sensitive pulse for the doubtful pleasure 
of scratching oneself. 

Those who make a jest of things will never be 
supreme. The day is not distant when these would- 
be fastidious people will be discovered so insignificant 
in presence of the immensity of actual facts, so 
incapable of producing, that they will collapse like an 
empty bag. Only the eternal is of any value ; whereas 
these frivolous persons cling to successive offshoots, 
knowing that both will fade away. Like the worn- 
out stomachs w T hich soon turn against nourishment 
and for which fresh culinary combinations have con- 
stantly to be found, they concentrate all their interest 
.upon the various modes which succeed one another 
every ten years. Theirs is a literature of epicureans, 
well calculated to please a class which is rich and 
has no ideal, but which will never be the literature of 
the people, for the people are frank, strong and sin- 
cere. This literature has no care for truth, but as a 
mere matter of good taste and bon ton. The thing 
is not to say what is, but what ought to be said. 
" He who believes nothing is worth nothing," said 
M. de Maistre. The ancient faith is impossible, but 
there remains faith by science, the critical faith. 

Criticism is not scepticism, much less levity. 
Criticism is keen and fine drawn, subtle and w 7 inged, 
without being frivolous. Germany was for a century 
the country of criticism, and yet who would say 



The Future of Science. 417 

that Lessing, Kant, and Hegel were frivolous men ? 
In France, it is not easy to conceive of a medium 
between the heavy erudition of the seventeenth cen- 
tury and the sharp-witted and sceptical manner of 
modern critics (180). When people talk of serious- 
ness, they are thinking of the simple wit of Kollin, 
which is certainly not what we want. What we 
want is not the bonhomie which excites suspicion, 
because it infers shortness of view. What we want 
is complete criticism, at once learned and elevated, 
indulgent and pitiless. Narrowness of mind is very 
dangerous in France because of the suspicion which 
it awakens, and because this suspicion is extended to 
whatever is dogmatic and moral. What people most 
dread in France is being duped. A man prefers 
having the character of being easy of conscience and 
of scruples to that of an honest fool, and if any idea 
of dulness of perception is associated with morality 
that is sufficient for it to be regarded with suspicion. 
This is why the term bon esprit has fallen into dis- 
repute. A title which should be the highest possible 
compliment has become almost synonymous with 
weak-mindedness, and is bestowed with surprising 
freedom. For, as a matter of fact, people are always 
ready to accord to others the qualities which they do 
not care about for themselves, and it is thought that, 
in applying to others the term bon esprit, one will pass 
for having a great or brilliant intellect oneself. We 
are so afraid of being duped that we are perpetually 
on the look out for attempts to deceive us, and we 
are ready to think that if our forefathers had been 
sharper, they would not have been so serious or so 
honest. And yet, if morality were only an illusion, 
it would be so fine a thing to allow oneself to be 
duped by it ! Domine, si error est, a te decepti sumus. 
Oh thou who hast made sport of my simplicity, I 
shall thank thee for having stolen my virtue ! 

We reject in the same way frivolous scepticism 
and scholastic dogmatism ; we are dogmatic critics. 
We believe in truth, although we do not claim to 

2 E 



418 TJie Future of Science. 

possess absolute truth. We do not desire to pen up 
humanity for ever within our formulae ; but we are 
religious, in the sense that we are firmly attached to 
the belief of the present, and that we are ready to 
suffer for this belief in view of the future. Enthu- 
siasm and criticism are far from being incompatible. 
We do not force ourselves upon the future any more 
than we accept without verification the inheritance 
of the past. We aspire to the high philosophical 
impartiality which does not attach itself to any 
party, not because it is indifferent to them, but 
because it sees in each of thern a mixture of truth 
with error ; which has no feeling of exclusiveness or 
hatred for any one, because it sees the necessity of 
all these various groupings and the right which each 
one of them has, by virtue of the truth which it pos- 
sesses, to make its appearance upon the world's stage. 
Error is not welcome to man ; a dangerous error is a 
contradiction like a dangerous truth. The reasoning 
of Gamaliel (181) is unanswerable. If a doctrine is 
true, it is not to be feared ; if it is false still less so, 
for it will explode of itself. Those who talk of doc- 
trines as dangerous should add " for me." Cabet, I 
am sure, never provoked any man's anger. Pure 
error would only provoke in human nature, which 
after all is kindly constituted, a sentiment of ridicule 
or disgust. 

What makes proselytism, what influences the 
world, are incomplete truths. The complete truth 
would be such a quintessence, would be so nicely 
poised, that it would not excite the passions enough, 
and would resemble scepticism. The breadth of 
mind which eliminated in the declaration of its 
views all limit or exclusion would seem sheer 
folly. The brain reels when one goes too close 
to identity ; the human mind can only have play 
when within the limits of a finite frame and of 
antithetical negation. Passion, while adoring its 
object, must needs hate its counterpart. Would 
France be so thoroughly herself if she had not the 



The Future of Science. 419 

antithesis of England to keep her personality at high 
pressure ? Passion implies exclusion, antagonism 
and partiality. Every doctrine, like every institution, 
bears within itself the germ of life and the germ of 
death. Called to life by its truth, the doctrine develops 
with it a principle of death which becomes in time 
intolerable and kills it. The fruit bears in it from 
the very first hour the principle of its decay ; hidden 
at first during the period of growth by the organizing 
forces, this principle declares itself at maturity, and 
then gains the mastery, until complete decomposition 
has set in. What any one system affirms is its share 
of truth, what it denies is its share of error. It only 
errs because it excludes whatever is not itself, be- 
cause it participates in human weakness which 
cannot embrace all things at once and creates science 
by an analytical and gradual process. The critic is 
he who examines all affirmations, and perceives the 
reason of all things. The critic runs his rule over 
all systems, not like the sceptic, in order to find them 
false, but to find them true in certain respects. And 
that is why the critic is little adapted for proselytism. 
For that which is partial is strongest ; men only 
become impassioned for that which is incomplete, or, 
to speak more accurately, passion, attaching them 
exclusively to one object, blinds them to all the rest. 
It is like the everlasting dupery of the lover who 
sees only his or her object. Exclusive love is parallel 
with hatred and anathema. The critic sees too 
clearly the distinctions to be energetic in action. 
Even when. he takes a side, he knows that his adver- 
saries are not altogether wrong. Now to act with 
vigour, one needs be more or less pitiless, believe 
that one is entirely in the right, and that those whom 
one is opposing are blind or bad. If M. Cavaignac 
or M. Changarnier had been as critical as I am, they 
would not have done us the service of saving us in 
June, for I confess that since February (the revolu- 
tion of 1848) the question has never appeared clearly 
enough defined to my judgineut for me to have 



420 Tlie Future of Science. 

ventured taking sides one way or the other. For, I 
said to myself, perhaps my brother is on that side ; 
perhaps I shall be killed by one whose will is as 
mine. 

Scepticism is thus graduated along the diverse 
degrees of human intelligence, alternating with dog- 
matism according to the more or less advanced 
development of the intellectual faculties. At the 
bottom of the ladder is the absolute dogmatism of 
the ignorant and the simple, who affirm and believe 
naturally, and have not seen any motives for doubt. 
— When the mind, which has for a long time been 
cradled in this simple faith, begins to discover that 
it may have been the sport of its belief, it becomes 
suspicious and imagines that the surest means of not 
being deceived is to reject everything ; a primitive 
scepticism which is not devoid of naivete (Sophists, 
Montaigne, etc.). — Then a more extensive learning, 
taking human nature in the mass, without concerning 
itself as to radical problems, endeavours to build 
upon common sense a reasonable but shallow dogma- 
tism (Socrates, Th. Reid). More vigorous views 
soon show what little ground there is for this fresh 
attempt ; the instrument itself is attached, and 
thence arises a great, a terrible, a sublime scepticism 
(Kant, Jouffroy, Pascal). — At last, the complete view 
of the human mind, the consideration of humanity 
aspiring after the true and enriching itself by the 
elimination of error, brings about the dogmatic 
criticism, which has no further dread of scepticism, 
for it has been through it, knows what its actual 
value is, and, very different from the dogmatism of 
the early ages, which had not even suspected the 
existence of any motives for doubt, is strong enough 
to live face to face with its enemy. Like all the 
men of this century, I have had my periods of scep- 
ticism ; I have loved Lelia as much as Ste'nio did ; 
but I have found a foothold in criticism, and even 
when such and such a creed does not appear to be as 
scientific as might be desired, I still say without hesi- 



Tlie Future of Science. 421 

tation : There is some truth in it, although I do not 
happen to possess the formula for extracting it. In 
the eyes of the schoolmen, Goethe is a sceptic, but 
he who is full of enthusiasm for all the flowers which 
he meets on his way and takes them to be good and 
genuine of their kind, is not to be confounded with 
one who passes disdainfully by without looking down 
at them. Goethe embraces the universe in the vast 
affirmation of love ; the sceptic has nothing but 
narrow negation for everything. 

While making the most liberal allowance to moral 
scepticism, while admitting that life and the universe 
are merely a series of phenomena of the same order, 
and of which all one can say is that they exist, while 
allowing that thought, feeling, passion, beauty and 
virtue are merely facts, exciting different sentiments 
in us, just like the various flowers of a garden or the 
trees of a forest (whence it would result, as Byron 
and Goethe thought, that everything is poetical), 
while admitting that, having reached the final atom, 
one is free, at will, to jest or to adore, so that the 
option would depend upon the individual character 
of each person, even from this point of view, from 
which morality ceases to have any meaning, science 
still would have. For what is certain is that these 
phenomena are- curious, that this world of manifold 
movements interests and fascinates us. Morality is 
also lacking in the world of insects which is all alive 
in a sheet of water, and yet how delightful it is to 
watch some flitting upwards to the sun, others, like 
the salamanders, making for the bottom, and the 
little worms forcing their way into the mud to seek 
their prey. This is life, and ever life ( 1 8*2) . This 
explains how science formed an essential part of the 
intellectual system of Goethe. To investigate, to dis- 
cuss, to regard, to speculate in a word, will always have 
been the most attractive thing, whatever may be the 
case with the reality (183). However much one may 
be like Werther, there is so much pleasure in describ- 
ing all this that life becomes as it were coloured with 



T& 



422 TJie Future of Science. 

it. Goethe, I ani sure, was never tempted to shoot 
himself. It is not impossible that humanity will 
some day come to an end, and that we shall have 
been workiDg for the benefit of the sea or volcanoes, 
of ice or flame. But certain it is that the knowledge 
and the realization of the beautiful will have had 
their use, and that science, like virtue, imports into 
the world facts of unquestionable value. The mys- 
tical Christians have developed in all its various 
forms the favourite theory that Mary, the symbol of 
contemplation, has, even in this world, the better 
part, and that he who has embraced the perfect life 
finds here below a sufficient reward. This is true to 
the letter of science. One of the noblest minds of 
modern times, Fichte, assures us that he had reached 
perfect happiness, and that at times he tasted such 
delight as almost to tremble (184). And yet, poor 
man, he was at the same time almost dying of star- 
vation. How often, in my modest room, surrounded 
by my books, I have tasted the plenitude of happi- 
ness, and have defied, the whole world to procure for 
any one purer joys than those which I derived from 
the calm and disinterested exercise of my thoughts. 
How often, letting my pen drop, and surrendering 
my soul to the thousand sentiments which, as they 
come and go; bring about an instantaneous relief to 
all our being, have I not said to heaven : Give me 
only life, and I can see to the rest for myself. 

Would to God that all living and pure souls were 
convinced that the question of the future of humauity 
is entirely one of doctrine and belief, and that phi- 
losophy alone, that is to say rational research, is 
capable of solving it. The really efficacious revolu- 
tion, that which will give its shape to the future, 
will not be a political, it will be a religious and 
moral revolution. Politics have supplied all that 
they are capable of yielding, and they are now only a 
barren and exhausted field, a battle-ground of passions 
and intrigues to which humanity is quite indifferent 
and which interest only those who take a share in 



The Future of Science. 423 

them. There are epochs when the whole question of 
the day is in politics ; thus, for instance, at the 
dividing line of the middle ages and of modern 
times, at the epoch of Philippe-le-Bel, of Louis XL, 
the doctors and the thinkers were of little account, 
or had only a real value in so far as they served 
politics. It was the same at the beginning of this 
century. Politics then governed the world, the men 
of intelligence whose ambition went beyond amusing 
their contemporaries, had to become Statesmen, in 
order to exercise their legitimate share of influence 
upon their epoch. A thinker in the time of the 
Empire was obliged to keep his thoughts to himself. 
It was not a blameworthy ambition which carried off 
into the melee all the intellectual notabilities of the 
first half of this century; these eminent men did what 
it was their duty to do in order to serve the society 
of their time. But this age is reaching its close; the 
leading part, as it seems to me, is more and more 
devolving upon the thinkers. Beside the centuries 
in which politics have occupied the centre of the 
movement of humanity, there are others in which 
they have been left to the petty world of intrigue, 
and in which the main interest has been concentrated 
upon things of the mind. Take, for instance, the 
eighteenth century ; and consider who had the upper 
hand of humanity during this grand epoch ! What 
are the names which strike one at a first glance over 
the history of this period ? Not Choiseul, or Eichelieu, 
or Maupeou, or Fleury, but Voltaire, Eousseau, Mon- 
tesquieu, and a whole school of thinkers who have 
their hold upon the century, mould it according to 
their will, and fashion the future. What are the War 
of the Austrian succession, the Seven Years' War, 
the Family Compact, compared with such events as 
the Contrat Social or the Esprit des Lois ? The affairs 
of State were in the hands of an incapable king, of 
insignificant courtiers, and of great noblemen with- 
out views or grasp, The true historical personages of 
the period are writers, philosophers, men of intellect 



424 The Future of Science. 

or of genius. But these latter did not take any 
active part in the direction of public affairs, their 
influence being indirect, and I imagine that, in the 
same way, those who will restore us the great origin- 
ality which has been lost will not be politicians but 
thinkers. They will grow up and magnify outside 
the official world, not even taking the trouble to 
offer it any opposition, leaving it to expire within 
its worn-out circle (185). 

Upon the poor pasturages of the Brittany islands, 
each ewe of the flock, tied to a stake in the centre, 
could only nibble the scanty grass within a certain 
narrow radius of the cord by which it is fastened. 
Such appears to me to be the present condition of 
politics; they have exhausted their resources for 
solving the problem of humanity. Morality, philo- 
sophy and true religion are not within their reach ; 
they are powerless to get beyond a certain circle. 
Can it be honestly hoped that, if the salvation of the 
present century was to be due to cleverness, or 
ability, we shall find men more able than M. Guizot 
or M. Thiers ? Who would not shrug his shoulders 
at the idea of inexperienced beginners having the 
presumption to think that they could, at the first 
attempt, do better than such men as these ? No, 
they will be outrivalled not by doing like them, but 
by doing different from them. If such men have 
been rendered incapable, is this their fault, or was it 
not rather because no amount of cleverness is on a 
par with the situation ? 

Let us take again the first three centuries of the 
Christian era. Where do we find that the greatest 
events were happening, where was the future being 
founded, what were the names being marked out for 
the respect of future generations ? Not, surely, 
those of Tiberius or Sejanus, of Galba, Otho or 
Vitellius. It was not they who occupied the centre 
of humanity, as was doubtless believed in their time ; 
the centre of the world was the most despised corner 
of land in the East. The great men marked out 



The Future of Science. 4*25 

for apotheosis were enthusiastic believers entirely 
strangers to the secrets of high politics. Five cen- 
turies later, the only men referred to in history as 
having been famous were Peter, Paul, John and 
Matthew, simple persons who, assuredly, made a very 
modest figure in the world. What would Tacitus have 
said if he had been told that all those personages 
whom he brings so skilfully on to the front of the 
stage would be completely effaced by the leaders of 
the Christians whom he treats with so much con- 
tempt ; that the name of Augustus would only be 
saved from oblivion because at the head of the records 
of the Christian year would be read : Imperante 
Ceesare Augusto, Ghristus natus est in Bethlehem 
Juda: that Nero would only be remembered because, 
during his reign, Peter and Paul, the future masters of 
Eome, are said to have suffered martyrdom; that the 
name of Trajan would still be found in a few narra- 
tives, not for his victory over the Dacians and for 
having put back to the Tigris the limits of the Empire, 
but because a credulous Bishop of Rome in the sixth 
century took it into his head to pray for him ? Here 
then we have a vast development quietly in prepara- 
tion for three centuries, growing in magnitude parallel 
with the official society, persecuted by this latter, but 
which, all at once, puts an extinguisher upon the 
politics of the day, or, it may rather be said, remains 
full of life and strength, while the official world is 
dying of exhaustion. If St. Ambrose had remained 
governor of Liguria, supposing even that he had 
obtained promotion, and had become, like his father, 
prefect of the Gauls, he would by this time have 
been entirely forgotten. He did much better to 
become a bishop. How can it be said after this that 
there is no way of serving humanity except by join- 
ing in the melee 1 I say, upon the contrary, that he 
who embraces with his whole heart this humiliating 
labour proves by that very fact that he has not a call 
for the great work. What are politics in our day ? 
Agitation without a principle or a law, a struggle of 



426 The Future of Science. 

rival ambitions, a vast stage of cabals and personal 
competitions. What are the qualities requisite for 
success, for "becoming possible," as the saying 
goes ? Is it great originality, an ardent and power- 
ful train of thought, impetuous conviction? These 
are insurmountable obstacles in the way of success ; to 
succeed, one must not think, or at all events not give 
expression to one's thoughts ; one must make so much 
use of one's personality that one ceases to exist ; 
one must always be careful to say not that which is, 
but that which it is expedient to say ; in short one 
must shut oneself up within a lifeless circle of con- 
ventional phrases and official falsehoods. And you 
would argue that it is from this that can proceed 
what we so stand in need of : an original sap, a new 
method of feeling, a dogma capable of stirring anew 
the pulse of humanity? It would be as reasonable 
to hope that scepticism will engender faith, and that 
a new religion will be born out of the offices of a 
ministry or the lobbies of an assembly. 

The most important question in politics is " Who 
is to be Minister? " But will humanity, let me ask, 
be any the better off if it is Mr. A instead of Mr. B 
who holds office ? I assure you that Mr. A knows as 
little as Mr. B the true secret of things, that the 
problem will not be any nearer solution than it was 
before, that all this is as of little importance as when 
at Rome people, speculated whether it would be 
Diclius Julianus or Flavius Sulpicianus who would 
bid the higher, and that the 750 intelligent persons 
who are grouped around this arena, following eagerly 
all the different phases of the combat, waste their 
time and their trouble. Not there is to be sought 
the field for great achievements. What humanity 
needs is a moral law and a creed ; and it is from the 
depths of human nature that they will emerge, and 
not from the well-trodden and sterile pathways of 
the official world. 

Think for a moment how humiliating, in epochs 
like our own, is the role of the politician. Banished 



Tlie Future of Science. 427 

from the high regions of thought, disinherited of the 
ideal, he passes his life in fruitless and ungrateful 
labour, administrative cares, office complications, 
mines and countermines of intrigue. Is that the 
place for a philosopher ? The politician is the off- 
scouring of humanity, not its inspired teacher. Who 
is there with any pride in his perfection who would 
let himself be inveigled into such an atmosphere of 
suffocation ? 

M. de Chateaubriand has, I think, maintained, in 
one of his writings, that the intrusion of men of letters 
into active politics denotes a decline of political 
intelligence in a nation. This is an error ; it proves 
the weakening of philosophical intelligence, of specu- 
lation, of literature ; it proves that the value and 
dignity of the intelligence are no longer understood, 
inasmuch as it no longer suffices to occupy the 
thoughts of distinguished men ; it proves, in short, 
that supremacy has passed away from the mind and 
from doctrine to intrigue and petty activity. But 
this activity will in due course declare itself to be 
incompetent, and then it will be felt that the great 
revolution can only come not from men of action, but 
from men of thought and sentiment. This vulgar 
kind of labour will be left to the uneasy spirits, and all 
noble and elevated minds, leaving the earth to those 
who have a liking for it, regarding the form of govern- 
ment as a matter of indifference, will take refuge upon 
the lofty summits of human nature, and, burning with 
enthusiasm for the beautiful and the true, will create 
new force which, rapidly descending upon earth, will 
upset the frail erections of politics, and will become 
in its turn the law of humanity. It does not do to 
expect too much from governments. It is not for 
them to reveal to humanity the law of which it is in 
search. All that can be expected of them in epochs 
such as ours is to sustain as well as they can the 
conditions of outward life so as to render it endurable. 
It is more to be desired than anticipated, too, that 
they will not be too severe upon the efforts which are 



428 The Future of Science. 

made in the new direction. Humanity will accom- 
plish the remainder, without asking any one for per- 
mission. No one can say from what part of the sky 
will appear the star of this new redemption. The 
one thing certain is that the shepherds and the magi 
will be once more the first to perceive it, that the 
germ of it is already formed, and that if we were able 
to see the present with the eyes of the future, we 
should be able to distinguish in the complication of 
the hour the imperceptible fibre which will bear life 
for the future. It is amid putrefaction that the germ 
of future life is developed, and no one has the right 
to say : This is a rejected stone, for that may be the 
corner-stone of the future edifice. Could a sage of 
the early ages have ever imagined that the future 
belonged to that despised and unsociable sect, the 
ban of the human race, which was associated in 
the imagination with darksome mysteries and odious 
orgies. The wits of the present day would have 
shown all the antipathy for this doctrine that they 
do for innovators of the modern age. These Chris- 
tians would have seemed to them to be a vile, igno- 
rant and superstitious set of people. 

It is certain that several Christian sects justified 
the calumnies of the pagans. The distinction which 
has since been established between the orthodox 
Church end the gnostic sects was at that time very 
vague ; they all formed one body, and there was a 
certain solidarity between them all. In the orthodox 
sect itself, there are a great many defects which we 
can see. The faculty has a name for those who 
believe that they possess the gift of tongues, of 
preaching and of prophecy. What are we to say 
of those who are daily expecting the end of the 
world : and the coming of a human body which will 
descend upon earth to reign ? The extravagant ideas 
of our maniacs of the phalanstery are nothing by 
comparison with those of the early enthusiasts. Jean 
Journet has recently been sent to the asylum at 
Bicetre, but Jean Journet does not believe he can 



The Future of Science. 429 

perform miracles, or speak a language be has never 
learnt. The Journal des Debats would have made 
fine game of these people, and yet they succeeded, 
while four centuries later the sharpest .wits were 
found to be their disciples, and even in the nine- 
teenth century many gifted minds regard them as 
being inspired. The bad complexion of a movement 
is never a decisive argument. Even if I had before 
me a popular movement of the most odious kind, a. 
regular Jacquerie, egotism saying to egotism "Your 
money or your life," I should still exclaim : " Long 
live humanity ! here is the promise of great things 
in the future." Great apparitions are always accom- 
panied by extravagances, they only reach a high 
degree of power when philosophical minds have 
given form and shape to them. Who can say that 
phalanstery will not have been the gnosis, the wild 
aberration of the new movement ? It is at any rate 
beyond question that the region is clearly enough 
designated, that, in order to know whence will come 
the religion of the future, we must always look in 
the direction of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. 

It is, therefore, to the mind and to the thought 
that we must revert. Now thought will in future 
only find true scope in the form of rational science. 
It may seem, at first sight, as if science has had little 
influence hitherto upon the development of things. 
Beckon up the men of intelligence who have put 
their shoulders to the wheel, and you will find 
among them thinkers and writers like Luther, Vol- 
taire, Rousseau, Chateaubriand and Lamarfcine, but 
very few savants or technical philosophers. The four 
words from Locke which Voltaire knew have had 
more influence upon the course of the human mind 
than the whole of Locke's book. The few fragments 
of German philosophy which have crossed the Rhine, 
put together in a clear and superficial way, have 
effected more than the doctrines themselves. That 
is the French method ; you take three or four words 
of a system, just enough to indicate a tendency; 



430 The Future of Science. 



the rest is all guesswork, and the thing is done. 
Humanity, it must be confessed, has not hitherto 
marched with much method, and many things have 
(if I may be permitted the expression) been jumbled 
together, in the progress of the human intelligence. 
But the one thing certain is that if the human race 
were as much in earnest as it ought to be, enlightened 
and competent reason in each order of things would 
govern the world. But what is enlightened and 
specially competent reason if it is not science ? 
Supposing even that the erudite man were never 
destined to have a place in the great history of 
humanity, his work and its results, assimilated by 
others and raised to their full height, will find their 
place in history by means of that secret influence 
and that inward infiltration which leads to no part 
of humanity being closed for the rest. 

Contemporary Germany offers one of the rare 
instances of the direct effects of science upon the 
march of political events. The idea of German unity 
came through science and literature. That nation 
seemed resigned to death, it had lost all conscious- 
ness, and no longer counted as an individuality in 
the world, when an incomparable group of geniuses,' 
Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Beethoven came and 
revealed it to itself. These are tbe true founders 
of German unity ; no sooner had the different parts 
of that great country found each other once more in 
the language, tongue, the glory and the genius of these 
great men, than they felt the tie which bound them, 
and were prompted to realize it in a political sense. 
This has given rise to a characteristic incident, viz. 
the learned, poetical and literary colour given to this 
movement from the time of Arndt, Kleist and Sand 
down to that gathering of doctors whose clumsiness 
and lack of adroitness may have made Europe smile 
and have compromised for a time but not ruined 
an idea which has been definitely set in motion. 



The Future of Science. 431 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

I one day visited this palace transformed into a 
museum on the frontispiece of which was written in 
a spirit of broad electicism " To all the glories of 
France." I had passed through the Gallery of 
Battles, the Hall of Marshals, those of various cam- 
paigns ; I had seen the coronation of kings and 
emperors, royal ceremonies, the capture of towns, 
princes, great lords, faces foolish or insolent, when 
all of a suddeu I asked myself: Where is the place of 
talent ? Here are men born to greatness, coxcombs, 
men without ideas, without morality, who never 
did anything for humanity. But where is the 
gallery of saints, the gallery of philosophers, the 
gallery of poets, the gallery of savants, the gallery of 
thinkers ? I see Louis XIV. founding I know not 
what order of nobility, and I do not see Vincent de 
Paul founding modern charity ; I see court episodes 
of more or less insignificance, and I do not see 
Abelard in the midst of his disciples discussing the 
problems of the day on Mount Sainte Genevieve ; I 
see the oath of the Tennis Court and I do not see 
Descartes shut up in his room and swearing not to 
relinquish his search until he had discovered the 
true philosophy. I see brutal and vulgar physiogno- 
mies with nothing ideal, and I cannot see Gerson, 
Calvin, Moliere, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, 
Condorcet, Lavoisier, Laplace, Chenier. Bossuet 
and Fenelon are there rather as courtiers than as men 
of talent. Can it be that Rousseau and Montesquieu 



432 The Future of Science. 

did less for the glory of France than such or such 
obscure general or long-forgotten courtier ? It is all 
over, said I to myself, talent has been disinherited. 
. . . But no. Over the uniform terraces of the 
palace-museum see where rises that majestic edifice 
crowned by the sign of Christ. Enter and tell me 
if any glory equals the glory of Him who is sitting 
there. Napoleon, whose name worked miracles, is 
not enthroned on an altar. Thank God ! the chief 
place is reserved for talent. The others have the 
palace, He has the temple. 

In the eyes of the philosopher the glory of talent 
is the only true glory and it is permitted to hope that 
the philosophers and the savants will inherit the 
glory, which during its period of brutality and 
antagonism, humanity was obliged to award to 
military exploits. I am unable to approve of the 
commonplace objection urged against conquerors ; 
one must have a very superficial mind to see in 
Alexander a madman who laid Asia in ashes. War 
and conquest may have been in ages gone by instru- 
ments of progress ; a manner, in default of any other, 
of bringing people into contact and of realizing the 
unity of humanity. Where would humanity be with- 
out the conquests of Alexander, without the Roman 
conquests? But when the world becomes rationalist, 
the greatest man will be the one who has done the 
most for ideas, who has searched the most, who has 
discovered the most. The battle will not be gastro- 
sophical, as Fourier wished ; it will be philosophical. 
From the beginning it is talent which has taken the 
lead in all things (Christianity, Crusade, Reform, 
Eevolution) and yet talent has remained humble, 
misunderstood, persecuted. Napoleon did not trouble 
the world as deeply as Luther, and yet what was 
Luther all his life ? A poor unfrocked monk who 
only escaped his enemies because it pleased some 
little princes to take him under their protection. If 
anything proves the intimate force of speculation 
which exists in the human mind it is that in spite 



The Future of Science. 433 

of the hard lot endured up to the present by thinkers, 
there have been men capable of devoting their lives 
notwithstanding insult, persecution and poverty, to 
the disinterested pursuit of truth. When one re- 
flects that the whole intellectual movement accom- 
plished up to our day has been realized by men 
unfortunate, suffering, harassed by internal and ex- 
ternal afflictions and that we ourselves preserve the 
tradition, with agitated heart, in the midst of fear 
and anguish, one conceives a greater esteem for that 
human nature, capable of pursuing an ideal object 
with so much energy. 

It is time to return definitively to the simplicity 
of life and to renounce all that artifice of convention, 
remnant of our aristocratical distinctions and the 
artificial society of the seventeenth century ; it is 
time to return to the simplicity of antique customs. 
Take Plato, Socrates, Alcibiades, Aspasia ; fancy them 
alive, acting according to the ravishing description 
handed down to us by antiquity, especially Plato. 
Do they possess that cold and insignificant pride 
which constitutes the tone of our aristocratic 
salons ? Have they that silly air, that vulgar laugh, 
that dull and prosaic appearance, that manner of 
treating life as an affair of business, like the middle 
class ? Have they that coarseness, that heavy look, 
that degraded expression which, I say it with sadness 
and without any idea of a reproach, marks our people? 
No. They are simple, they are men. 

Those honest minds of refined ages, Rousseau, for 
example, Tacitus perhaps, through reaction against 
what was artificial and false in their time, often 
looked back with complacency on barbarous times 
which they called the age of nature. Innocent illu- 
sion which converted no one and which only inspires 
refined persons with an easy sort of resignation. One 
reads with pleasure those eloquent declamations: one 
accepts them as given themes, but no matter what 
Voltaire says, no one after reading Rousseau ex- 
periences the desire of walking on all fours. It is 

2 F 



434 The Future of Science. 

puerile to compare a barbarous state to refined 
civilization ; it should be compared to the true 
civilization of which Greece offers us an incomparable 
example. What we require, in the way of civilization, 
is Greece without the slave system. Where can one 
find more freedom given to the individual, more 
personal originality, more spontaneousness, more 
dignity ? We understand only royal or aristocratical 
majesty. The majesty of the ideal is blended by us 
with that of religion which we place beneath humanity, 
and as for the majesty of the people we do not under- 
stand it, because it does not exist. Athens, on the 
contrary, is pure humanity. M. de Maistre declared 
majesty to be entirely Roman. Certainly not. The 
Olympian Jupiter and the Grecian Pallas, Salamis 
and the Pireus the Pnyx and the Acropolis have 
their majesty ; but that majesty is real and popular ; 
whereas the Roman majesty is made up and worked by 
machinery. There were not two fashions at Athens ; 
on the contrary, the fine manners of the time of 
Augustus were much the same as those of our aris- 
tocracy, and alongside of all this was to be found a 
ridiculous population. 

Majesty is only to be found in true humanity, 
poetry, religion, morality. All other prestige at a 
certain moment becomes ridiculous. It is in the 
natural order of things that what has been imposed 
by force excites laughter as soon as its prestige is 
destroyed. One likes to revenge oneself for one's 
past respect as soon as the scaffolding has been 
stripped of its hangings. One requires, for the vulgar 
illusions of external respect, a simplicity which we 
no longer possess ; we are too cunning not to lift 
up the veil. We have demolished the old idol of 
respect : an idol is not to be restored. How, I pray, 
can one give oneself respect ? How can one recall 
to life by means of reflection that which only existed 
owing to the absence of reflection ? The child may 
be afraid of the face he has besmeared ; but, once he 
has laughed at it, will he not always remember that 
it v>a,s to frighten himself that he besmeared it ? 



The Future of Science. 435 

The essential condition for a show of performing 
dolls is not to see the wire. The simple minded 
look on the thing as serious, as if the dolls were real 
persons ; the clever people are amused even when they 
get a glimpse of the wire for they know that there 
is one. But if the demi-clever people have the mis- 
fortune to perceive it they laugh at the performance 
to show that they are not dupes. It is the same with 
respect : respect is natural with the simple, super- 
ficial people resist it with comical self-conceitedness ; 
it flourishes among the wise in consequence of their 
perspicuity. The sages know of the existence of 
the wire but do not think it worth while to make a 
fuss over so simple a discovery. The superficial 
minded, on the contrary shout and storm that 
humanity must at any price he delivered from these 
prejudices. " One must have a hidden thought," says 
Pascal, " and judge of everything by that, at the same 
time, however, speaking like the people." But when 
the number of artful people is too large cheating is 
impossible, for it then becomes the fashion to pretend 
to be knowing and to say to the simple, "Ah! how 
foolish you are to allow yourself to be caught." 
Therefore one must go to work with simplicity and 
demand respect only for things which are respectable. 

The advent of the middle classes has operated, 
it must be admitted a great simplification in our 
manners. Our costume is very , narrow and very 
artificial when compared with the simple and noble 
fulness of the antique costume however it is no 
longer false like that of the old aristocracy. There 
is still much to be done ; it is necessary to simplify 
and ennoble. The middle class has at times com- 
mitted the error of wishing to return to the old airs 
of the nobility ; it in no way succeeded and merely 
rendered itself ridiculous. For nothing is so ridi- 
culous as a false imitation of majesty. What we 
require is real politeness, real gentleness, simplicity 
of life, virtue as shown by amenity and grace of 
manners. The Kepublicans who pretend to be 



436 TJie Future of Science. 

austere delude themselves strangely in believing that 
the idea of majesty can be banished from humanity. 
Better the ancient idolatry, surrounding some indi- 
viduals with splendour, than that colourless life in 
which the majesty of humanity is not represented. 
But it were better still to return to the truth and to 
recognize no other majesty than that of the nation 
and the ideal. 

These manners I would willingly call democratic 
manners, in this sense that they do not repose upon 
any artificial distinction (186) but simply upon the 
natural and moral relations of men among themselves. 
People often imagine that these democratic manners 
are the manners of the wine shop and this is a little 
the fault of those who have confiscated this expression 
for their profit. But true democratic manners would 
be the most charming, the most gentle, the most 
amiable. They would be morality itself, more or 
less attractive, more or less harmonious, according 
as the individuals were more or less happily endowed. 
They would be the manners of poems and of ideal 
romances, where human sentiments would appear in 
their primitive simplicity, without a bourgeois or 
refined air. The real democratic manner would 
necessitate upon one hand the abolition of the 
aristocratic salon and the cafe and on the other 
hand the extension of family relations and of public 
gatherings. It is true that with regard to the latter 
our society offers a hiatus difficult to fill up. We 
have nothing analogous to the antique school. Our 
school is exclusively destined for children and there- 
fore condemned to be derm-ridiculous like everything 
which is pedagogical ; our club is entirely political 
and yet man requires intellectual assemblies. The 
ancient school was for persons of all ages the 
gymnasium of the mind. The sage, like Socrates, 
Stilpo, Antisthenes not writing but speaking to their 
disciples or frequenters {pi crvvovTes) is now impossible. 
The philosophical conversation such as Plato has 
given us in his dialogues (187), the antique Sympasie 



The Future of Science. 437 

is not conceivable in our days (188). The Church 
and the press have killed the school. Now that the 
Church is no longer anything for the people, what 
will replace her ? 

What is called society is far from being favourable 
to good manners and noble characters. I would not 
dare to say it, if M. Michelet had not said it before 
me : " After the conversation of men of genius and 
savants that of the people is certainly the most 
instructive. If one cannot talk with Beranger, 
Lamennais or Lamartine, one must go into the fields 
and converse with the peasants. What has one to 
learn from the middle class ? As for the salons I 
never left them without finding that my heart had 
been diminished and had grown colder." The im- 
pression which I carry away with me on quitting 
a salon is despair of civilization. If civilization were 
destined to terminate in this abortion, if the people 
in their turn were to exhaust themselves in this way, 
and, at the expiration of a few centuries to grow 
insipid in the bosom of vanity and pleasure, Cato 
would be right, it would be necessary to regard as 
instruments of feebleness and wisely to break every- 
thing which in our eyes is an instrument of culture 
and progress, but which, in this hypothesis, would 
only serve to create generations greedy of servitude 
in order to live at their ease. Nothing can equal, 
especially in the provinces, the life of the middle class, 
and I never see without sadness and a sort of terror 
the physical and moral deterioration of the rising 
generation ; and yet these are the grandsons of the 
heroes of a great epopee ! I get on better with the 
simple, with a peasant, with a working man, with 
an old soldier. We speak to some extent the same 
language, I can at a pinch converse with them : this 
is radically impossible with a vulgar citizen : we are 
not of the same clay. 

Herman lived only for himself, his family and a 
few friends. With them he is simple, natural, and 
full of life ; he reaches to heaven. In society he is 



438 The Future of Science. 

id supportably stupid aud condemned to mutism in 
the round of conversation which does not allow him 
to insert a single word. If he tries the strange 
sound of bis voice causes every bead to be raised ; 
it is discordant. It does not know how to give 
change ; does he wisb to indulge in repartee, he 
takes from bis pocket gold instead of coppers. In 
the Academy or the Portico, be would bave held his 
own, he would have had favourite disciples; he 
would have figured in a dialogue of Plato like Lysis 
or Charmides. If he had seen Dorothea lovely 
courageous and proud standing by the fountain he 
would bave dared to say — Allow me to drink. If, 
like Dante, he had seen Beatrice with downcast eyes 
coming out of the church at Florence, perhaps a 
ray of light would have traversed his life and 
perhaps the daughter of Palco Portinari would have 
smiled at his trouble. Well ! in presence of a young 
lady be only experiences and causes awkwardness. — 
Your Hermann, you will say, is a countryman let 
him go to bis village — not in the least. At his 
village be would find vulgarity, ignorance and the 
impossibility of comprehending delicate and beautiful 
things. Now, Hermann is polished and cultivated, 
more refined even than the gentlemen who frequent 
the salons, but not of an artificial and fictitious 
refinement. There is in bim a world of thought and 
sentiment which would be unable to understand 
coarse stupidity or frivolous scepticism. He is a true 
and sincere man taking a serious view of his nature and 
adoring the inspirations of God in those of his heart. 
Intellectual work therefore only possesses all its 
value when it is purely human, that is to say when 
it corresponds to this fact iu human nature : man 
does not live by bread alone. The grand scientific 
and religious feeling will only revive when people 
return to a conception of life as true and as little 
mixed with what is fictitious as if it were formed 
alone in the midst of the forests of America, or by 
some Brahmin, wben, finding that he has lived long 



The Future of Science. 439 

enough, he takes off his drawers, ascends the Ganges 
and goes to die on the summits of the Himalayas. 
Who has not experienced these moments of inward 
solitude when the mind descending from stratum to 
stratum pierces one after the other all the superposed 
surfaces until it arrives at the real bottom, where 
all convention expires and where oue faces one's self 
without fiction or artifice ? These moments are rare 
and fugitive : we habitually live in presence of a 
third person who hinders the fearful contact between 
me and himself. Life is only sincere on condition 
of piercing this intermediary veil and of constantly 
reposing on the true depth of our nature, in order 
to listen to the disinterested instincts which lead us 
to learn to adore and to love. 

This is why the sincere man so greatly admires 
and tires himself out in adoration before simple life, 
before the infant who believes in and smiles at every- 
thing, before the young girl who does not know that 
she is beautiful, before the bird which sings on the 
branch merely for the sake of singing, before the 
hen which struts out proudly in the midst of her 
chickens. It is because God is seen there in sim- 
plicity. The refined man considers as foolish the 
things in which the people and men of genius take 
the most interest, animals and children. Genius is 
to possess at the same time the critical faculty and 
the gifts of the simple. Gtnius is infant; genius is 
people ; genius is simple. 

The Brahminic life offers the most powerful model 
of life exclusively devoted to religion, or rather the 
serious conception of existence. I do not know if 
the picture of the life of the first Christian recluses 
of the Thebaid, so admirably traced by Fleury, offers 
such a halo of idealism. Besides the Brahminical 
life has this superiority over the cenobitical and 
hermitical life that it is at the same time human 
life, that is to say family life and that it is allied 
to positive life, without lending it a value which 
it does not possess : the Christian ascetic received 



440 The Future of Science. 

his food from a celestial raven ; the Brahmin goes 
into the forest and cuts his own wood ; he must have 
his hatchet and his basket to collect his wild fruits. 
During the sojourn of the sons of Pandou in the forest 
their wife Draupadi offers to the strangers whom 
she has received in her hermitage the game which 
her husbands have killed.* The Lives of the Fathers i 
of the desert offer nothing which can be compared 
to the following sketch extracted from the Mahab- 
harata : " The king advanced toward the sacred 
grove, image of the celestial regions : the river was 
filled with bands of pilgrims while the air resounded 
with the voices of pious men who each one repeated 
fragments of the sacred books, The King followed 
by his minister and his high priest, advanced towards 
the hermitage, animated with the desire of seeing 
the holy man, inexhaustible treasure of religious 
science ; he looked at the solitary asylum, similar 
to the region of Brahma; he heard mysterious 
sentences, taken from the Vedas, pronounced in 
rhythmic harmony. . . . This spot sparkled with glory 
owing to the presence of a certain number of 
Brahmins. . . . some of whom sang the Samaveda 
while another band sang the Bharoundasama. . . . 
All were men of cultivated mind and imposing 
appearance. . . . These places resembled the dwelling 
of Brahma. The king heard on all sides the voices 
of these men instructed by long experience in the 
rites of sacrifice, of those who possessed the prin- 
ciples of morality and the science of the faculties of 
the soul, of those who were skilled in conciliating 
texts which do not harmonize, or who knew all the 
private duties of religion ; mortals whose minds 
tended to free their souls from the necessity of re- 
generation in this world. He heard also the voices 
of those who, by indubitable proof, had acquired a 
knowledge of the supreme being ; of those who knew 
grammar, poetry and logic and who were versed in 

* The sods of Pandou are supposed to have had but one wife — 
Draupadi. — Tkansl. 



The Future of Science. 441 

chronology ; who had penetrated the essence of 
matter, of movement and of quality; who knew 
causes and effects, who had studied the language 
of birds and that of bees (the good and the evil 
omens) who believed in the works of Vyasa, who 
offered models for the study of books of sacred origin 
and the principal personages who search out the 
trials and troubles of the world (189)." India in fact 
represents to me the truest and most objective form 
of human life, that where man, struck with the 
beauty of things, pursues them without any personal 
feeling and simply owing to the fascination which 
they exercise over his nature. 

Religion is the word under which has been resumed, 
up to the present, the life of the mind. Take the 
Christian of the first ages ; religion is his whole 
spiritual life. Not a thought, not a feeling which is 
not attached to it : material life is almost entirely 
absorbed in this great movement of idealism. Sive 
manducatis, sive bibitis, says St. Paul. What a 
superb system of life, all ideal, all divine and really 
worthy of the children of God. There is no exclu- 
sion there, the chain is not felt ; for, although the 
limit is narrow our wants do not go beyond it. The 
law, severe as it is, is entirely the expression of man. 
In the Middle Ages this great equation still existed. 
The fairs, the meeting for business or pleasure are 
religious fetes ; the scenic representations are mys- 
teries ; voyages are pilgrimages ; wars are crusades. 
Take, on the contrary, a Christian, even the most 
severe, in the time of Louis XIV., Montausier, Arnauld, 
Beauvilliers, you will find two divisions in his life : 
the religious portion which, although the principal, 
is not sufficiently strong to assimilate itself with the 
rest ; the profane portion to which one must accord 
some value. Then, but not before, the ascetics began 
to preach renunciation. The first Christian had no 
need to renounce anything for his life was complete ; 
his law was adequate to his wants. Afterwards, 
religion, not being able to provide for everything, 



442 The Future of Science. 

cursed what escaped it. I am sure that Beauvilliers 
took a very delicate pleasure in the tragedies of 
Racine, and perhaps even in the comedies of 
Moliere ; and yet it is certain that in going to see 
them he did not consider that he was performing a 
religious act, perhaps he even thought that he was 
sinning. This separation was a matter of necessity. 
At that epoch religion was received as a letter closed 
arid sealed, which was not to be opened, but which 
one was bound to receive and transmit, and yet, 
human life always opening up, it was necessary that 
new wants should overcome all scruples, and that, 
not being able to find a place in religion, they should 
take up a position opposite to it. Hence a system 
of life both colourless and indifferent. Religion is 
respected but people guard against its invasions; they 
give it its share, to it which is only something on 
condition of being everything. Hence these petty 
theories concerning the separation of the two powers, 
of the respective rights of reason and faith. 

The result must be that religion, being isolated, cut 
off from the heart of humanity, no longer receiving 
anything from the general circulation, like a limb 
which is bound, must wither and become an appen- 
dage of secondary importance, while on the contrary 
profane life, in which all the actual and living 
feelings, all discoveries, all new ideas, are concen- 
trated, must become the master portion. Without 
doubt the great men of the eighteenth century were 
more religious than they thought; what they banished 
under the name of religion was clerical despotism, 
superstition, narrow forms. The reaction however 
carried them too far ; the religious colour was almost 
entirely wanting in that century. The philosophers 
placed themselves without knowing it in the position 
of their adversaries, and, under the empire of the 
association of obstinate ideas, appeared to suppose 
that the secularization of existence would bring 
about the elimination of all religious habits. I think, 
like the Catholics, that our society founded upon a 



The Future of Science. 443 

supposititious pact, and our atheistical law, are tem- 
porary anomalies, and that until we can speak of "our 
holy constitution" stability will not be conquered. 
Now, the return to religion can be nothing else than 
the return to the great unity of life, to the religion 
of the intellect without exclusion and without limit. 
The sage has no need of praying at certain hours for 
his whole life is a prayer. If religion is to have a 
distinct place in life it must absorb life altogether. 
The most rigorous asceticism is alone consistent. 
Only superficial-minded or weak-hearted people, once 
Christianity admitted, can take any interest in life 
in science in poetry, in the things of this world. 
The mystics look with pity upon this weakness, and 
they are right. The true philosophical religion would 
not reduce this great tree, which has its roots in the 
soul of man, to a few branches, it would only be a 
manner of spending one's whole life in seeing beneath 
everything the ideal and divine sense, and in sancti- 
fying one's whole life by the purity of the soul and 
the elevation of the heart. 

Religion, as I understand it, is far removed from 
what the philosophers call natural religion, kind of 
petty theology without poetry, without action upon 
humanity. All the attempts made in this direction 
have been and will remain fruitless. Theodicy has no 
meaning regarded as an individual science. Is there 
any man of sense who can hope .to make discoveries 
in such an order of speculations ? True theodicy, is 
the science of things physics, physiology, history 
looked upon in a religious light. Religion is to know 
and to love the truth of things. A proposition is only 
of value in so far as it is understood and felt. What 
signifies this sealed formula, this unknown tongue, 
this a X b theology, which you present to humanity 
saying " This will preserve your soul for life eternal : 
eat and you shall be healed," — a pill which you must 
not bite on pain of feeling a cruel bitterness ? Well ! 
what matters it to me if I do not taste it ? Give me 
a leaden bullet to swallow, that will have the same 



444 The Future of Science. 

effect. What to me are stereotyped phrases devoid 
of sense, like the formulas of the alchemist and 
the magicians which operate of themselves ex opere 
operato, as the theologians say ? Black and scholastic 
doctors occupied only with your Incarnation and 
your real Presence, the time has come when you 
shall worship the father, not on this mountain nor in 
Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth (190). 

M. Proudhon is certainly a distinguished philo- 
sopher of great intelligence. But I cannot pardon him 
his airs of atheism and irreligion. It is to commit 
suicide to write such phrases as this — " Man is des- 
tined to live without religion. A number of symp- 
toms show that society, by an internal work constantly 
tends to shake off this envelope henceforward useless." 
That if jou. practice the worship of what is noble and 
true, if the sanctity of morality speaks to your heart, 
if all beauty, all truth, all goodness leads you to the 
threshold of a holy life, to intelligence; that if, arrived 
there, you refuse to speak, you wrap yourself up, 
you purposely mix up your thought -and your language 
in order to say nothing limited in presence of the 
infinite, how do you dare to speak of atheism ? That 
if your faculties, resounding simultaneously, have 
never uttered that grand and unique rite, which we 
call God, I have nothing more to say, you are devoid of 
the essential and characteristic element of our nature. 

Humanity is only converted when it falls in love 
with the divine charm of beauty. Now beauty in 
the moral order is religion. This is why a religion 
dead and outstripped is still more efficacious than all 
the institutions which are purely profane ; this is 
why Christianity is still more creative, comforts more 
suffering, acts more vigorously upon humanity than 
all the principles acquired in modern times. The 
men of the future will not be mean disputatious 
reasoners, insulters, men of party, intriguers, without 
ideal. They will be noble, they will be amiable, 
they will be poetic. I, inflexible critic, I shall not 
be suspected of flattery for a man who searches the 



The Future of Science. 445 

Trinity in all things and who believes, God pardon 
me, in the efficacy of the name of Jehovah ; well ! 
I prefer Pierre Leroux, mistaken as he is, to these 
pretended philosophers who would recast humanity 
in the narrow mould of their scholastic ideas and 
triumph with politics over the divine instincts of the 
human heart. 

The word God having taken possession of the 
respect of humanity, this word having a long pre- 
scription in its favour and having been employed 
in beautiful poems, it would perplex humanity to 
suppress it. Although it is not very univocal, as the 
scholastics say, it corresponds to an idea sufficiently 
clear: the summum and the ultimum, the limit where 
the mind stops in the scale of the infinite. Suppose 
even that we philosophers should prefer another word, 
reason for example, in addition that these words are 
too abstract and do not sufficiently express real 
existence, there would be a great inconvenience to 
deprive us thus of all the poetic sources of the past 
and to separate us by our language from the simple 
who adore so well after their fashion. Tell the 
simple to live by aspiration after truth and beauty ; 
these words would have no meaning for them. Tell 
them to love God, not to offend God ; they will under- 
stand you perfectly. God, providence, soul, good old 
words, rather heavy, but expressive and respectable, 
which science will explain but will never replace with 
advantage. What is God for humanity if not the 
transcendent epitome of its suprasensitive wants, the 
category of the ideal, that is to say the form under 
which we conceive the ideal, as time and space are 
categories, that is to say forms under which we conceive 
bodies (191) ? Everything reduces itself to this fact of 
human nature ; man in presence of the divine is no 
longer himself, he clings to a celestial charm, he 
lays aside his paltry personality is carried away and 
absorbed. What is that if it is not to adore ? 

If one views the matter as regards substance and 
asks oneself : This God does He or does He not exist ? 



446 TJie Future of Science. 

— Oh, God would I reply, it is He who is and all 
the rest which appears to he. If the word to be has 
any meaning, it is assuredly applied to the ideal. 
What, you would admit that matter exists, because 
your hands and your eyes say so, and you would doubt 
of the divine being which all your nature proclaims 
from the first ? What is the meaning of this phrase : 
" Matter is " ? what would remain of it in the hands 
of a strict analysis ? I do not know and to tell the 
truth I consider the question senseless. ; for one must 
confine oneself to simple notions. Beyond is the 
gulf. Eeason only attains a certain mean region ; 
above and below ijb loses itself as a sound which by 
dint of becoming sharp or flat ceases to be a sound 
or at least to be perceived. I like, for my own part 
to compare the object of reason to those foaming or 
frothy substances where the substance is hardly any- 
thing and which only exist thanks to their effer- 
vescence. If one pursues too closely the substantial 
foundation nothing remains but the bare unity; as 
mathematical formulas too closely pressed render all 
identity fundamental and only mean something on 
the condition of not being too simplified. Every 
intellectual act, like every equation, reduces itself at 
bottom to A = A. Now, with this limit, there is no 
more knowledge there is no more intellectual work. 
Science commences only with details. In order that 
there should be any effort of the mind a superfices 
is necessary, something variable, diverse, otherwise 
one loses oneself in the infinite One. The One only 
exists and is perceptible when developing itself in 
diversity, that is to say in phenomena. Beyond, it 
is repose, it is death. Knowledge is the infinite 
poured into a finite mould. The knot alone has any 
value. The faces of the unity are alone an object of 
science. 

There is not a word in the philosophical language 
which may not give rise to great errors if one takes 
it in its substantial and vulgar sense, instead of using 
it to design classes of phenomena. Realism and 



Hie Future of Science. 447 

abstraction touch each other ; Christianity may 
have been turn about with good reason accused of 
realism and of abstraction. Phenomenalism alone is 
genuine. I hope that no one will ever accuse me of 
being materialist and yet I regard the hypothesis of 
two substances joined together to form man as one 
of the most clumsy inventions made by philosophy. 
The words body and soul remain perfectly distinct in 
so far as they represent the orders of irreducible 
phenomena, but to make this diversity, entirely 
phenomenal, synonymous to an ontological distinc- 
tion, is to fall into a ponderous realism and to 
imitate the ancient hypotheses of physical sciences, 
which suppose as many causes as different effects, 
and explain by those real and substantial fluids facts 
in which a more advanced science sees nothing but 
various orders of phenomena. Of a truth it is much 
more absurd to say in a spirit of exclusion : man is a 
body : the truth is that there is a unique substance, 
which is neither body nor soul, but which reveals 
itself by two orders of phenomena, which are the 
body and the soul, that these two words have no 
meaning except in their opposition, and that this 
opposition exists only in acts. The spiritualist is. 
not hini who believes in two substances coarsely 
united ; it is he who is persuaded that the acts of 
the mind alone have a transcendental value. Man 
is ; he is matter, that is to say expanded, tangible, 
endowed with physical properties ; he is mind, that 
is to say thinking, feeling, adoriug. The mind is 
the goal as the goal of the plant is the flower ; with- 
out roots, without leaves, there are no flowers. 

The most simple act of intelligence comprehends 
the perception of God ; for it comprehends the per- 
ception of being and the perception of the infinite. 
The infinite exists in all our faculties and constitutes, 
it is true, the distinctive feature of humanity, the 
unique category of pure reason which distinguishes 
man from the animal. This element may become 
effaced in the vulgar acts of intelligence ; but as it 



448 Tlie Future of Science. 



is to be found indubitably in the acts of the mind, 
this is a reason to conclude that it is to be found in 
all those acts ; for that which exists in one degree 
exists in all the others ; and besides the infinite 
shows itself much more energetically in the acts of 
primitive humanity, in that life vague and without 
conscience, in that spontaneous state, in that native 
enthusiasm, in those temples and pyramids than in 
our age of polished reflection and analytical view. 
This is the God of whom we have an innate idea and 
who does not require demonstration. Against this 
God atheism is impossible ; because people affirm 
Him while denying Him. Everywhere man has out- 
paced nature ; everywhere, beyond the visible, he 
has supposed the invisible. This is the only feature 
which is truly universal, the identical foundation 
upon which divers instincts have embroidered infinite 
varieties, from the multiple forces of savages to 
Jehovah, from Jehovah to the Indian Oum. To 
look for a universal consent on the part of humanity 
to anything else but this psychological fact is to 
misuse terms. Humanity has always believed in 
something beyond the finite, this something, it is 
suitable to call God. Therefore all humanity has 
believed in God. Very well. Bat do not, mis- 
using a definition of words, pretend that humanity 
has believed in such and such a God, in a moral and 
personal God formed by anthropomorphic analogy. 
That God is so little innate that the half of humanity 
has not believed in Him and that it has required ages 
to formulate this system in a complete manner, in 
ordering man to love God. It is not that I entirely 
blame the method of anthropomorphic psychology. 
God being the ideal of every one, it is right that 
every one should fashion Him after his manner and 
on his own model. One must not therefore fear to 
employ all the goodness and beauty that can be 
imagined. But it is contrary to all criticism to pre- 
tend to erect such a method into a scientific method 
and to raise, out of an ideal construction, a discussion 



The Future of Science. 449 

on the qualities of a being. Let us say that the 
supreme being is eminently possessed of all that is 
perfection ; let us say that he has in him something 
analogous, to intelligence, to liberty ; but do not let 
us say that he is intelligent that he is free : this 
would be trying to limit the infinite, to give a name 
to the ineffable (192). 

One is accustomed to consider monotheism as a 
definitive and absolute conquest, beyond which there 
can be no ulterior progress. In my eyes monotheism 
is, like polytheism, only an age in the religion of 
humanity. This word, besides, is far from designating 
a doctrine absolutely identical. Our monotheism is 
only a system like another, inferring it is true very 
advanced notions. It is the Jewish system, it is 
Jehovah. Neither the ancient polytheism, which 
also contained a great portion of truth j nor India, 
so learned in its conception of God, understood 
things in this manner. The deva of India is a 
superior being to man, by no means our God. 
Although the Jewish system has entered into our 
intellectual habits it should not make us forget all 
that was profound and poetic in other systems. No 
doubt, if the ancients had understood by God what 
we ourselves understand, polytheism would have been 
a contradiction of terms. But their terminology in 
this matter reposed upon notions quite different from 
ours respecting the government of. the world. They 
had not yet arrived at the conception of unity of 
government in the universe i The Greek worship 
representing at bottom the worship of human nature 
and the beauty of things, and that without any 
orthodox pretension, without any dogmatic organiza- 
tion, is only a poetical form of universal religion 
perhaps not far removed from that to which philo- 
sophy will return (193). This is so true that where 
the moderns have wished to make some trials of 
natural worship they have been obliged to approach 
it. The great moral superiority of Christianity makes 
us too easily forget the breadth, the toleration, the 

2 G 



450 The Future of Science. 



respect for all that was natural which existed in 
Grecian mythologism. The origin of the severe 
manner in which we have judged it lies in the 
ridiculous way in which mythology has been pre- 
sented to us. One imagines a religious body obliged 
to enter our conceptions by force. A religion which 
has a God for thieves, another for drunkards, appears 
to us the height of absurdity. Now, as humanity 
has never lost its common sense, we must admit that 
until we can conceive these fables naturally we do 
not possess the key to the enigma. Polytheism only 
appears absurd to us because we do not understand 
it. Hamanity is never absurd. The religions which 
do not pretend to repose upon a revelation, so inferior 
as machines of action to religions organized dogmati- 
cally, are, in one sense, more philosophical, or rather 
they only differ from truly philosophical religion by a 
more or less symbolical expression. These religions 
are, at bottom, only the State, the family, art and 
morality elevated to a high and poetic expression. 
They do not divide life in two ; they have no sacred 
and profane. They know nothing of mystery, re- 
nouncement and sacrifice since they accept and 
sanctify nature at first sight. These were bonds, 
but bonds of flowers. There lies the secret of their 
feebleness in the work of humanity ; they are not 
strong but also less dangerous. They do not possess 
that prodigious psychological subtilty, that spirit of 
limit, of intolerance, of particularism, if I dare say 
so, that force of abstraction, veritable vampire which 
has gone on absorbing all that is gentle and mild in 
humanity ever since it was given to the wan image 
of the crucified One to fascinate the human con- 
science. It sucked everything even to the last drop 
out of poor humanity : juice and force, blood and life, 
nature and art, family, people, country; everything 
went down, and on the ruins of an exhausted world 
there remained but the phantom of the Me, tottering 
and distrustful. 

Up to the present, men as far as religion is con- 



TJie Future of Science. 451 

cerned have been divided into two categories : 
religious men believing in a positive dogma, and 
irreligious men holding themselves aloof from all 
revealed belief. This is insupportable. Henceforth 
they must be classed thus : religious persons taking 
a serious view of life and the sanctity of things ; 
frivolous men, without faith, without seriousness, 
without morality. All those who adore something 
are brothers, or certainly not such great enemies as 
those who adore simply pleasure and interest. It 
is indubitable that I resemble more a Catholic or 
a Buddhist than a sceptical laugher and my intimate 
sympathies are a proof of this. I love one, I detest 
the other. I can even call myself a Christian, in 
this sense that I admit being indebted to Christianity 
for most of the elements of my faith, just as M, 
Cousin might have called himself Platonician or 
Cartesian without accepting all the inheritance of 
Plato or Descartes, and above all without feeling 
himself obliged to regard them as prophets. Do 
not say that I am twisting words when I thus arro- 
gate to myself a name the acceptation of which I 
have greatly altered. No doubt if one understands 
by religion a number of imposed dogmas and external 
practices, then I admit that I am not religious ; but 
I also maintain that humanity is not essentially so 
and will not always be so in that sense. What is a 
part of humanity, and will consequently be as eternal 
as itself, is the religious want, the religious faculty, 
to which up to the present the great ensembles of 
doctrine and ceremonies have corresponded but 
which will be sufficiently satisfied with the pure 
worship of good and beautiful things. We have 
therefore the right to speak of religion, since we 
have the analogy, if not the thing itself; since the 
want which was formerly satisfied by positive re- 
ligions is now satisfied by something equivalent 
which has the right of being called by the same 
name. If people absolutely persist in taking this 
moral in a more restricted sense, we will not dispute 



452 The Future of Science. 

over a free definition, we will merely remark that 
religion thus understood is not essential and that it 
will disappear from humanity, leaving vacant a place 
which will be filled up by something analogous. 

A great deal has been said within the last few 
years of a religious revival, and I williDgly admit 
that this revival has generally shown itself in the 
form of a return to Catholicism. This is as it should 
be. Humanity feeling the imperious want of a religion 
will always cling to that which it finds already made. 
It is not to Catholicism, as Catholicism, that this 
century has returned but to Catholicism as a religion. 
It must also be admitted that Catholicism with its 
harsh and absolute forms, its rigorous rules and its 
perfect centralization, must please a nation which saw 
in it the most perfect model of it's own government. 
France which finds it quite natural that a law 
emanating from Paris should become at once applic- 
able to the Breton peasant, to the Alsatian workman, 
to the nomad shepherd of the Landes, must also find 
it quite natural that there should be at Rome an 
infallible being who regulates the belief of the world. 
This is very convenient. Delivered from the care of 
making one's creed and even . of understanding it 
one can, after that, attend in full security to one's 
affairs saying — that does not concern me ; tell me 
what I must believe ; I believe it. Strange con- 
tradiction, for, formulas having no value except the 
sense they contain it is of no advantage to say — "I 
trust to the Pope ; he knows what to believe and I 
believe as he does." People believe that faith is 
like a talisman which saves by its own virtue ; that 
they will be saved if they believe some unintelligible 
proposition, without taking the trouble to understand 
it ; they do not feel that these things are only of 
value according to the good which they do the soul, 
by their personal application to the believer. 

If a return towards Catholicism has taken place it 
is therefore in no way because progress in the way of 
criticism has brought it back, it is because the want 



The Future of Science. 453 

of a religion has been more sharply felt and because 
Catholicism alone was ready at hand. Catholicism 
for the immense majority of those who profess it, is 
no longer Catholicism ; it is religion. It is repugnant 
to pass one's life like the brute, to be born, to con- 
tract marriage, to die without any religious ceremony 
consecrating these holy acts. Catholicism is there 
to satisfy this want ; then let us have Catholicism. 
People do not examine matters more closely ; they 
do not enter into details of dogmas, they pity those 
who undertake so sterile a task ; they are heretics a 
hundred times over without being aware of it. What 
has made the fortune of Catholicism in our days, is 
that it is little known. It is only seen through 
certain imposing externals, one only takes into 
consideration what is elevated and moral in its 
dogmas ; one does not enter into the brush-wood. 
What is more, one bravely rejects or complacently 
explains those dogmas which are too openly opposed 
to modern ideas. If one were obliged to accept as 
an article of faith every text of Scripture and every 
decree of the Council of Trent, it would be a different 
matter; one would be surprised to find oneself 
incredulous. Those who have been led by peculiar 
circumstances to wage a death-struggle on this 
ground have reasons for not being accommodating. 

This then is the explanation of the return to 
Catholicism which appears to be so strongly opposed 
to philosophy. The eighteenth century, having had 
for its mission to destroy, found in it that pleasure 
which every being experiences in accomplishing its 
object. Scepticism and impiety were pleasing in 
themselves. But we who are not intoxicated with 
this first burst of joy, we who, having returned to the 
soul, have found in it the external want of religion, 
which is at the bottom of human nature, we have 
looked round us, and, rather than remain in this 
penury which has become intolerable, we have re- 
turned to the past, and we have accepted, as it 
stands, the doctrine handed down to us. When 



454 The Future of Science. 

one no longer knows how to create cathedrals one 
imitates them. For one can do without religious 
originality ; but one cannot do without religion. 

Individuals pass through analogous phases in their 
inward life. In the age of force, when the critical 
spirit is in all its vigour, when life appears like an 
appetizing prey, and when the sun of youth sheds 
its golden rays on everything, the religious instincts 
are easily satisfied; one enjoys life without any posi- 
tive doctrine ; the charm of intellectual labour tones 
down everything, even doubt. But when the horizon 
comes closer ; when the old man endeavours to chase 
the cold terrors which assail him ; when the sick 
man has exhausted the generous force which allowed 
him to think boldly, then there is no rationalist how- 
ever firm who does not turn towards the God of 
women and children and ask the priest to comfort 
him and to deliver him from the phantoms which 
beset him under this pallid sun. Thus may be ex- 
plained the weaknesses of so many philosophers in 
their last days. The death-bed requires a religion. 
Which ? no matter ; but one is necessary. It seems 
to me at this moment that I should die contented in 
the communion of humanity and the religion of the 
future. Alas ! I would not swear to this were I to 
fall ill. Each time that I feel myself enfeebled I 
experience a nervous excitability and a kind of return 
to piety. 

Mole sua stat • such in our days is the reason why 
Christianity exists. Who has not stopped, while 
passing through our ancient towns, become modern, 
at the foot of those gigantic monuments of the faith 
of ages past ? Everything has been renewed around 
them ; there is no longer a vestige of the dwellings 
and customs of former times. The cathedral has 
remained, somewhat damaged perhaps as far as the 
hand of man can reach, but deeply rooted in the soil. 
It has resisted the deluge which has swept everything 
away around it, and the family of ravens which have 
built their nests in the steeple have not been dis- 



The Future of Science. 455 



turbed. Its magnitude is its right. Strange pre- 
scription ! Those converted barbarians, those 
builders of churches, Clovis, Rollo, William the 
Conqueror tower over us still. We are Christians 
because it pleased them to be so. We have reformed 
their political institutions, become superannuated ; 
we have not dared to touch their religious establish- 
ment. It is considered wrong that we who are 
civilized should meddle with the dogma created by 
barbarians. And what right have they which we do 
not possess ? Peter, Paul, Augustin lay down our 
law, much as if we were still subject to the Salic 
law and the Gombette law. So true is it that as far 
as religious creation is concerned centuries are given 
to calumniate themselves, and to refuse to them- 
selves the privileges which they freely accord to 
distant ages ! 

Hence the immense disproportion vvhich can, at 
certain epochs, exist between religion and the moral 
social and political state. Religions are petrified 
and customs are continually modified. Like those 
granite rocks consolidated in swallowing up in their 
still liquid mass foreign substances, which will form 
a portion of their body for ever, Catholicism has 
solidified itself for ever and henceforward no puri- 
fication is possible. I know that there is a milder 
Catholicism which has known how to compound with 
the necessities of the times and to throw a veil over 
truths too unpalatable. But of all the systems that 
is the most inconsistent. I can conceive orthodox 
and incredulous people, but not the neo-catholics. 
The profound ignorance which exists in Prance, 
outside of the clergy, of biblical exegesis and theo- 
logy, has alone given rise to that superficial school 
so full of contradictions. It is in the Fathers and 
in the Councils that true Christianity must be sought 
for and not among those weak and light-minded 
spirits who have perverted it in toning it down, 
without rendering it more acceptable. 

For the great majority of men the established 



456 The Future of Science. 

religion is only the ideal portion of human life and 
looking at it in this light it is supremely respectable. 
How charming to see in the cottages or in vulgar 
houses, where everything appears to be buried under 
the weight of useful preoccupations, pictures repre- 
senting nothing real, saints and angels ! What con- 
solation amid the tears of our state of suffering, to 
see unfortunate people, bowed down under the weight 
of six days' labour, come on the seventh day to repose 
themselves on their knees, to look at lofty columns,- 
vaults, an altar, to hear and enjoy the singing, to listen 
to a moral and consolatory sermon. Oh ! barbarians 
are those who call this lost time and speculate on 
the gain of suppressed Sundays and fete-days ! We 
who have art, science and philosophy, we have no 
need of the church. But the people, the temple is 
their literature, their science, their art. The people 
do not see what is dangerous and fatal in Christianity. 
The mind which aspires to a high and reflective 
culture must first of all shake off Catholicism ; for 
there are in Catholicism dogmas and tendencies in- 
consistent with modern culture. But what is this 
to the simple minded ? They only pluck the flower ; 
what does it matter to them that the roots are bitter? 
I feel indignant on seeing a man however little ini- 
tiated in the culture of the nineteenth century still 
preserve the belief and the practices of the past. 
On the contrary when I travel through the -country 
and I see at the angle of each road and in every 
cottage signs of Catholic superstition my heart is 
touched and I would rather hold my tongue all my 
life than scandalize one of those children. A Holy 
Virgin in the dwelling of a reflective man and in 
that of a peasant, what a difference ! In that of a 
reflective man it appears to me to be a revolting 
absurdity, the symbol of an exhausted art, the amulet 
of a degrading devotion ; in that of the peasant it 
appears to me as a ray of the ideal which has pene- 
trated beneath the cottage roof. I love this simple 
faith as I love the faith of the Middle- Ages as I love 



The Future of Science. 457 

the Indian prostrating himself before Kali or 
Kristna, or placing his head under the wheels of the 
car of Juggernaut. I adore the ancient sacrifice ; 
I have no distaste for the foolish taurobolium of 
Julian. The peasant without religion is the ugliest 
of brutes, without any distinctive sign of humanity 
{animal religiosum), Alas ! a clay will come when 
they will undergo the common law and pass through 
the hateful period of impiety. It will be for the 
good of humanity ; but, God, for nothing in the 
world would I labour at such a work. Let the im- 
proper undertake it ! These good people not belong- 
ing to the nineteenth century must not be blamed 
for belonging to the religion of the past. This is my 
manner of acting : in the village I go to mass ; in 
the town I laugh at those who go there. 

I am sometimes tempted to shed tears when I 
think that, by the superiority of my religion I isolate 
myself in appearance from the great religious family 
in which are all those I love, when I think that the 
purest minds in the world must consider me impious, 
wicked, damned ; must do so, be it remarked, owing 
to the very necessity of their faith. Fatal orthodoxy, 
thou which formerly caused the peace of the world, 
thou art only good now to work separation. The 
man of a ripe age can no longer believe what the 
child believes ; the man can no longer believe what 
the woman believes ; and what is "terrible is that the 
woman and the child join their hands to say : In the 
name of heaven, believe as we do or you will be 
damned. Ah! not to believe them one must be very 
savant or very hardhearted ! 

A souvenir is recalled to my mind, it fills me with 
sadness, without making me blush. One day at the 
foot of the altar and under the hand of the bishop, 
I said to the God of the Christians : Dominus pars 
hwreclitatis mecB et calicis met ; tu es qui restitues 
hcereditatem meam mihi. I was very young then and 
yet I had reflected a great deal. At every step that 
I took towards the altar doubt followed me ; it was 



458 The Future of Science. 

science and, child that I was I called it the demon. 
Assailed by contradictory ideas ; tottering at twenty 
years on the bases of my life, a luminous idea entered 
my mind and for the moment re-established calm and 
comfort : Whoever thou art, I exclaimed in my 
heart, God of noble minds I receive thee as the 
portion of my lot. Up to the present I have called 
thee by the name of a man ; I believed on his word 
him who said : I am the truth and the life. I will 
be faithful to him in following the truth wherever it 
may lead me. I will be the true Nazarene, while, 
renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world, I 
shall love only what is good and shall exert my 
activity for nothing else. Well ! I do not repent of 
these words to-day and I willingly repeat them : 
Donrinus pars hcereditatis mece, and I am pleased to 
think that I pronounced them during a religious 
ceremony. The hair has grown again on my head ; 
but T still beloug to that holy militia, the disinherited 
of the earth. I shall not look upon myself as an 
apostate until material interests usurp in my mind 
the place of what is holy, the day when, in thinking 
of the Christ of the Gospel I no longer feel myself 
his friend, the day when I prostitute my life to in- 
ferior matters and when I become the companion of 
the jovial of the earth. 

Funes ceciderunt mild in prceclaris ! My lot will 
always be with the disinherited : I shall belong to 
the league of the poor of spirit. Let all those who 
still adore something unite together in the object 
they adore. The day for little men and little things 
has passed ; the time for saints has arrived. The 
atheist is the man who is frivolous ; the impious and 
the pagans are the profane ; the egotists those who 
understand nothing concerning the things of God ; 
branded souls who affect to be clever and who laugh 
at those who believe ; base and terrestrial souls 
destined to grow yellow from egotism and to perish 
from nullity. How, disciples of Christ, can you 
enter into an alliance with those men ? Oh ! would 



The Future of Science. 459 

it not be better for us to sit down side by side with 
poor humanity, seated gloomy and silent on the 
side of the dusty road, to raise its eyes to the mild 
heaven which it no longer regards ? For us the die 
is cast : and even should superstition and frivolity, 
henceforth in separable auxiliaries, succeed in dead- 
ening human conscience for a time, it will be said 
in the nineteenth century, the century of fear, that 
there were still men, who, in spite of common con- 
tempt, liked to be called men of the other world; 
men who believed in the truth, who were ardent in 
its search, in the midst of an age, frivolous because 
it was without faith and superstitious because it was 
frivolous. 

I was formed by the Church, I owe all to her and 
I shall never forget her. The Church separated me 
from profane men, and I thank her. He whom God 
has touched will always be a being apart ; he is, no 
matter what he does, out of place among men, he is 
known by a sign. For him young men have no joys 
to offer, and young girls have no smile. Since he 
has seen God his tongue is embarrassed, he no longer 
knows how to speak of terrestrial things. God of 
my youth I have long hoped to return to Thee with 
colours flying and in the pride of reason and perhaps 
I shall return humble and vanquished like a feeble 
woman. Formerly Thou listened to me ; I hoped 
some day to see Thy face for I heard Thee answer my 
voice. And I have seen Thy temple crumble away 
stone by stone; the sanctuary has no longer an echo, 
and, instead of an altar ornamented with lights and 
flowers, I have seen rise before me an altar of brass 
against which prayer, severe, unadorned, without 
images, without tabernacle, blood-stained by fatality 
shatters itself. Is it my fault ? is it Thine ? Ah ! 
how willingly I would beat my breast, if I could 
hope to hear that beloved voice which formerly made 
me tremble. But no, there is only inflexible nature; 
when I search Thy fatherly eye I find only the orbit 
of the infinite empty and baseless, when I search Thy 



460 The Future of Science. 

celestial brow I dash myself against a vault of brass 
which coldly sends back my love. Farewell then, 
God of my youth ! Perhaps wilt Thou be the God 
of my death-bed. Farewell ; although Thou hast 
deceived me, I love Thee still ! 



NOTES. 



1. This tendency to place the ideal in the past is peculiar to ages 
that repose on unassailed and traditional dogma. Ages of upheaval 
like our own, on the other hand, in which the continuity of doctrinal 
teaching has been broken, must of necessity appeal to the future, 
seeing that to them the past is merely a mistake. All ancient 
peoples placed the ideal of their nation at its origin ; the ancestors 
were more than men (heroes, demi-gods). On the other hand, during 
the Augustan period, when the disintegration of the ancient world 
begius to manifest itself, observe the aspirations towards the future, 
so eloquently expressed by the incomparable poet, in whose soul the 
two worlds were locked in close embrace. Oppressed nations do 
the same ; " Arthur is not dead ; Arthur will come again ; " they 
exclaim. The most puissant cry towards the future, ever uttered by 
any nation is the belief of the Jewish nation in the Messiah. That 
belief had its birth and grew during the iron grip of alien persecu- 
tion. The embryo is formed at Babylon, it gathers strength and 
assumes a distinct character under the persecution of the Syrian 
monarchs, it finds its climax under Roman oppression. 

2. I have seen men of the people transported with genuine ecstasy 
at the sight of the graceful movements of swans on a piece of water. 
It is impossible to say at what depth the feelings of these two simple 
lives were interpenetrated. But it is evident that the people, face to 
face with the animal, regards it as his brother, as leading a life ana- 
logous to his own. Lofty intellects, whose sympathies reunite them 
with the masses, experience the same feeling. 

3. How modest and amiable, for instance, is that declaration of 
savants — often eminent — at the beginning of their works that they 
have no intention of encroaching on the domain of religion, that they 
are not theologians, and that the theologians can have no objection 
to their attempts at unambitious natural philosophy. There are in 
France, men who vastly admire the religious " establishment " of 
England, because it is the most conservative of all. In my opinion 
this system is the most illogical and the most irreverent with regard 
to things divine. 

4. This seems to me to be the true definition of the accidental in 
history rather than Et quia scepe latent causes, fortuna vocatur 



462 Notes. 

G-ustavus Adolphus is struck down by a cannon ball at Lutzen, and 
his death changes the face of things in Europe. Here we have 
a fact, the cause of which is by no means unknown, but which never- 
theless may be termed chance or the irrational part of history, 
because the direction of a cannon ball a few centimetres one way or 
the other is not a fact proportionate to the immense consequences 
resulting from it. 

5. Life is nothing else but this ; the aspiration of the being to be 
all it can be ; the tendency to pass from potentiality to act. Dante, 
who in his book " De Monarchia " expresses ideas on humanity 
almost as advanced as those of the boldest humanitarians, had an 
enlightened perception of this fact. Proprium opus humani generis 
totaliter accepti est actuare semper totam potentiam intellectus 
possibilis. (De Monarchia, I.) Herder says in the same way, 
" The perfection of a thing consists in its being all that it should and 
can be. Hence, the perfection of the individual is that he should be 
himself in the whole of the successive phases of his existence " 
(TJeber den Charakter der Menschheit). 

6. The year 1789 will be in the history of humanity a holy year 
as having been the first to trace the outline of this previously 
unknown fact — with marvellous ingenuity and incomparable energy. 
The place in which humanity proclaimed itself, the Tennis Court, 
will be one day a temple. It will be visited by the pilgrim, like 
Jerusalem, when distance shall have sanctified and characterised 
particular facts in symbols of general facts. Golgotha only became 
hallowed ground two or three centuries after Jesus. 

7. See as eminently characteristic the Declaration of Rights in the 
Constitution of '91. It is the whole of the Eighteenth Century with 
its claims to the control of nature and of things established, its 
analj 7 sis, its craving for clearness and logical evidence. 

8. What, for instance, shall we say of our university education, 
reduced to pure outward discipline without the smallest regard for 
the soul and moral culture ? As for other matters, is it surprising that 
Napoleon should have conceived a college as a barracks or a 
regiment ? Our system of education is still, without our being 
aware of it, feature for feature, that of the Jesuits, based upon the 
idea that man can be "licked" into moral shape by bringing 
outward influences to bear upon him, totally forgetful of the soul 
that imparts life, treating him, in short as a piece of intellectual 
mechanism. 

9. Languages afford a curious instance in point. Languages, mani- 
pulated, twisted, remodelled by the hands of man, like French 
show the indelible stamp of their treatment in their want of flexi- 
bility, in their laboured construction, in their lack of harmony. The 
French language, made by logicians is a thousand times less logical 
than Hebrew or Sanskrit created by the instincts of primitive man. 
I have developed this point in an " Essay on the Origin of Language," 
published in the philosophical review, " La Liberte de Penser " of 
the 15th September and the 15th December 1848. 

10. See for instance, " les Considerations sur la France " of M. de 



Notes. 4 63 

Maistre. The ingenious writer has plainly perceived the defects of 
the reformers, the artificiality, the formalism, the rage for writing 
and publishing that which is much stronger when left uirwritten. 
But he has failed to perceive that these defects were a necessary 
condition of ulterior progress. 

11. Voltaire never professed to say anything else in his numerous 
attacks on optimism ; they are just satires on the absurdities of his 
century. 

12. " De la Democratic en France " ; p. 76. A little further on, 
the principle is laid down that landed property is superior to any 
other, because the proceeds of it depend less upon the exertions of 
men, and more on blind causes. 

13. The greater or lesser extent of a people's belief in fate is the 
test of her civilization. The Cossack blames no one for being 
whipped, it is his fate ; the Turkish rayah bears no one a grudge, 
on account of the burdens imposed upon him ; it is his fate. The 
poverty-stricken Englishman nurses no grievance ; if he starves to 
death, it is his fate. The Frenchman revolts if he suspects that his 
misery is the consequence of a social organisation capable of reforma- 
tion. 

14. By reason I do not solely mean human reason, but the reflec- 
tion of every thinking being, extant or to come. If I could believe- 
in the endless perpetuation of humanity, I would unhesitatingly 
infer that it must attain perfection. But it is physically possible 
that humanity may be fated to perish or become exhausted, and that 
the human species itself may gradually perish of atrophy when the 
fountains of living force and new races shall have dried up. (Lucre- 
tius has some weighty arguments on this point, V., 381, et seq.). 
In that case it will have only been a transient form of the divine 
progress of all things and of the evolution of the divine conscience. 
For even if humanity should not exercise a direct influence on the 
forms that will succeed it, it will have played its part in the 
graduated progress as a branch necessary to the growth of higher 
branches. For though these may not be offshoots of the first 
branch, they will spread outwards from the same trunk. Hegel 
has no foundation for attributing an exclusive role to humanity, 
which is doubtless not the only conscious form of the divine, though 
it may be the most advanced within our knowledge. To find the 
eternal and perfect we must go beyond humanity and plunge into 
the deep sea. Were I here to disclaim any tendency to pantheism, it 
would look as if I did so in deference to a suspicious timidity, and 
that I admitted the right of somebody to demand a profession of 
orthodoxy ; I will, therefore not do so. Sufficient be it for me to 
state my belief in a living reason for all things, and that I admit 
human freedom and personality as evident facts ; consequently every 
doctrine logically advanced in order to deny them would, in m) 
opinion, be false. I should add that if pantheism appears so absurd 
to most people, it is because they do not understand it, and because 
they interpret the principle ; " All is God" in a distributive and not 
in a collective sense. In this instance all is not synonymous with 



464 Notes. 

every any more than in the sentence ; " All the departments of 
France constitute an area of so many square leagues." There 
would be few absurdities comparable to this • "Every object is God." 
Hegel has very well explained this. {Cours d'esthetique, t. ii., p. 
108 ; Benard's translation.) 

15. What else in fact is the science of the Middle-Ages but dis- 
putation ? Wrangling is so dear to the schoolmen that they preserve 
it like game, and provide one another with the opportunity for sport ; 
they dispose their canons so as never to lack material for it. There 
are propositions, acknowledged to be false, but which are, neverthe- 
less, not condemned in order to afford an opportunity for disputation. 
Read the treatise the theologians call ; " Les lieux Theologiques," 
and you will get an idea of that strange method. Never mind the 
truth, the thing is to hit upon something lending itself to controversy ; 
to know is nothing, to wrangle everything. 

16. If you wish for a typical instance of this irreverent manner of 
treating science, of taking it as a jeu d' esprit, fit at most to beguile 
the tedium of an aimless life or to raise the inane laughter so dear 
to those who are debarred from laughing genuinely, read the Journal 
de Trevoux and in general the scientific works issued by the same 
brotherhood, which, be it said by the way, has not produced a single 
serious savant (except perhaps Kircher, who also drifts into sheer 
folly at times, though his folly is at any rate that of his time), but 
which on the other hand has produced some matchless types of 
scientific charlatanism, Bougeant, Hardouin, etc. All this belongs 
to the same order of things as the thoroughly innocent and twaddling 
minor poetry of the members of the society ; Du Cerceau, Commire, 
Rapin, etc. And though the works of the Benedictines are of an 
altogether different order, they do not disprove my thesis. The need 
of beguiling the leisure of a tranquil and retired existence with 
useful work, a taste for study, the instinctive love for compiling and 
collecting may render immense service to scholarship, but they do not 
constitute a love of science. 

17. Let us suppose that the considerations of Descartes for theology 
were not solely inspired by political motives, which I do not admit ; 
the intellect of Descartes was of the absolute order, altogether 
devoid of the critical faculty ; and it is quite possible that he may 
have fully believed in Christianity. 

18. This is so true that semi-critical intellects only resign them- 
selves to admitting miracle in antiquity. Tales that would raise 
a smile if they were related as contemporary, pass muster in virtue 
of the enchantment lent by distance. It seems to be tacitly admitted 
that primitive humanity lived under natural laws different from our 
own. 

19. The way in which every nation naively reflects herself in the 
physiognomy of her miracles is truly marvellous. Compare the 
miracle of the Hebrews, grave, severe, without variety like Jehovah 
Himself ; the miracle of the Gospel, beneficent and moral ; the 
Talmudic miracle, disgustingly vulgar ; the Byzantine miracle, dull 
and devoid of poesy ; the miracle of the Middle-Ages, graceful and 



Notes. 465 

sentimental ; the Jesuit and Spanish miracle, materialistic, ener- 
vating, immoral. This is not surprising seeing that each people 
only puts upon the stage in its miracles the supernatural agents of 
the government of the Universe, as it understands them ; and these 
agents are fashioned by each race after its own model. 

20. The study of Greek science and philosophy had already pro- 
duced an analogous result among the Mussulmans in the Middle- 
Ages. Averroes may be considered a rationalist pure and simple. 
But this splendid onward movement was checked by the rigid 
Mussulmans. The numbers and the influence of the philosophers 
were not sufficiently large to carry the day, as was the case in 
Europe. 

21. See the admirable description of the pietist reaction in the 
beginning of the seventeenth century in Michelet's " Du Pretre, de 
la Femme, de la Famille," Ch. I. and throughout the book ; a 
thoroughly vivid and original description of tire most delicate and 
indescribable facts. It contains a whole world of which people 
scarcely care to speak with bated breath. See also the delicate 
psychological analysis which M. Sainte-Beuve so unfortunately 
entitled " Volupte." Nor should we forget Das ewig Weibliche at 
the end of Faust, and Mephistopheles, though blaspheming, van- 
quished with roses, and the admirable episode of Dorothee and Agnes 
in the " Pucelle." 

" The damsel o'ereome by a contrite emotion 
Determined a father confessor to seek ; 
For there's ouly one step between love and devotion, 
And dear are the weaknesses both — to the weak," 

A rigorous psychological analysis would class the innate religious 
instinct of women in the same category with the sexual instinct. 
The first manifestation of all this occurs in a characteristic manner 
in the Middle- Ages in the case of the lollards, beguards, fraticelli, 
" poor men of Lyons," humiliati, flagellants, etc, 

22. This opposition sometimes produces strange effects. Certain 
weaknesses of the fiercest rationalists can only be explained in this 
way. There are in life " melting moments " when everything thaws 
— becomes moist, limp, deliquescent. I have often thought that this 
type (of fierce intellectual pride combined with the most feminine 
weakness) might be taken as the subject for a psychological novel. 
Faust only corresponds to a part of my idea. The ancients dis- 
tinguished between dry heat and moist heat by one of those distinc- 
tions banished by our physical system, because they are not based on 
sufficiently accurate facts, but Avhich contained nevertheless a great 
deal of truth. This distinction is perfectly just, at any rate in 
psychology. 

23. I have heard a very excellent person rejoice over the cholera ; 
" for," said he ; " those calamities are sure to bring in their wake 
a return to religious ideas." After all, this is perfectly consistent. 
What matter, so long as souls are saved ? 

24. In reality, the divergences between religious sects are not less 

2h 



466 Notes. 

great. But they do not strike one so much, because they do not 
exist simultaneously in the same country, while philosophy is looked 
at synoptically, as inter-connected in all its parts. As a matter of 
course in countries where several sects confront one another, scepti- 
cism is never far behind. 

25. Finding it impossible to define these ideas with accuracy, 
I refer to the hymn, in which in my earliest youth, I tried to express 
my religious ideas, at the end of the volume. (It has been suppressed.) 

26. Such for instance are Descartes' proofs of the existence of 
God. No mind laying claim to any subtelty has taken them 
seriously, and I should deeply pity the man whose religious faith has 
no better basis than this scholastic scaffolding. Still these proofs 
are really true, all equally true, however narrow the spirit in which 
they are expressed. 

27. It is in this that Germany excels. The views of her writers 
are thoroughly individual and absolutely untranslatable. Change 
the form in which they are expressed however slightly, they vanish, 
like the essence that evaporates in being- transferred from one vase 
to another. Certain German works of the highest order are intoler- 
ably heavy in French ; take away the fragrance of rosewater and it 
becomes worse than ordinary water. Take, for instance, the admir- 
able introduction of Wilhelm von Humboldt to his essay on Kawi, 
in which the most subtle views of German writers on the science of 
language are brought together ; well, this essay, translated into 
French, would have lost all meaning and would emerge simply as 
a monumental platitude. This constitutes its very claim to praise, 
because it proves the delicacy of the style. 

28. Fichte, for instance, in his " Method to attain a happy life," 
is never tired of repeating ; " Is not this as clear as daylight ? Can 
any well-ordered mind fail to understand this ? " When a sincere 
man speaks in this tone, I always believe him. For how can a 
straightforward mind, applying itself seriously to its object, fail to 
see right ? It is, therefore, certain that Fichte's system was per- 
fectly true to him, from his own standpoint. 

29. Thus the hypotheses on electricity and magnetism, afford an 
explanation of the phenomena ; they supply a convenient connection 
between the facts ; but they are not to be taken as possessing an 
absolute value, and as correspondent to physical realities. 

30. " I see the sea, rocks, islands ; " says he who looks through 
the windows on the northern side of the castle. " I see fields and 
trees and meadows ; " says he who looks through the windows on 
the south. They would make a mistake to dispute ; both are right. 

31. The typical representative of this kind of intellect is assuredly 
Joseph de Maistre, a grand seigneur who has no patience with the 
slow discussions of philosophy. " In God's name, give us a decision, 
and let there be an end of it. True or false it matters not, so long 
as I am at peace. An infallible pope, that is the shortest way and 
the best ! What do I say, an infallible pope ? That would be 
honouring those vile mortals too much 1 Ko, no ; a pope from 
whom there is no appeal." 



Notes. 467 

32. The most naively touching thing I know is the effort made 
by the faithful, forcibly carried away by the scientific current of the 
modern spirit, to reconcile their old doctrines with that formidable 
power which dominates them, do what they may. If one could lay 
bare this or that conscience, one would find in it hoards of pious 
subtelties, truly edifying and indicating an exceedingly amiable code 
of morality. 

33. One of those who have most vigorously insulted human nature 
in the interests of revelation has said somewhere (See IJ Univers of 
26th March, 1849) that he greatly preferred Rabelais, Parny and 
Pigault-Lebrun to Lamartine. I can easily believe it. Voltaire 
also got along better with the Cure of Versailles who petted and 
fleeced his flock in turns than with St. Vincent de Paul or St. 
Francis de Sales. 

34. A curious inquiry might be made into the higher or lower 
•price of human life at different phases of the development of 
humanity. It would be found that this price has always been 
estimated according to the real value, that is, that human life was 
much more respected at the periods when it really was worth more. 
Human conscience is very gradually developed, and traverses sundry 
different stages. The value of a conscience therefore is in direct 
proportion to the advancement of its development. Civilized man 
who is so energetically conscious of himself is much more man, if 
I may be permitted to say so, than the savage who is scarcely con- 
scious of his own existence, and whose life is only a small compara- 
tively valueless phenomenon. This is why the savage sets so little 
store by life, relinquishes it with such strange unconcern and deprives 
others of it in mere sport. With him the feeling of individuality 
has scarcely commenced. The animal, and to a certain extent the 
child, looks upon the death of one of his fellows without alarm. 
The price one sets upon one's own life is generally the price one sets 
upon that of others. Several facts of our Revolution can only be 
explained on this theory. Human life had become dreadfully cheap. 

35. Christianity by its universal and catholic tendencies has been 
instrumental in diminishing the antique love of country. The Chris- 
tian forms a part of a much more extensive and holier society, which 
if needs be he must prefer to his country. 

36. Heaven forbid that I should insult so distinguished an intellect 
as Franklin. But it is difficult to conceive how a man endowed 
with the least moral and philosophical feeling could have written 
chapters, entitled ; " Advice how to make a fortune." — " Necessary 
advice to those who wish to be rich." — " The means always to have 
money in your pocket." " Thanks to these means," he adds, " the 
sky will be more bright to you, and a feeling of pleasure will cause 
your heart to throb. Make haste to adopt these rules and to be 
happy." Truly a charming way of ennobling human nature. 

37. Of all the usages of antiquity libation seems to me the most 
poetical and the most religious ; it is the sacrifice (sheer waste the 
positivists would say) of the first fruits to the invisible powers. 

38. The same irrational, but withal energetic and beautiful appli- 



468 Notes. 

cation of human nature may be noticed in the ideas of the religious 
on expiation. The need for expiation after an immoral or frivolous 
life is indeed very legitimate ; the error consists in having enter- 
tained the belief that it was a question of punishing one's self. The 
only rational penance is repentance and a more impassioned return to 
a beautiful and earnest existence. 

39. Small minds which conceive perfection as a state of medio- 
crity resulting from the reciprocal neutralisation of extremes call 
this excess, but this is a narrow and paltry way of explaining such 
facts. The blame lies, not in the abundance of energy, but in the 
wrong direction given to powerful instincts. 

40. These harmonious complaints have become one of the most 
fruitful themes of modern poesy. With the exception of that of 
Jouffroy, I know of none more sincere than those of Louis Feuer- 
bach, one of the most advanced representatives of the ultra-Hegelian 
school (" Recollections of my religious life " — a continuation of 
"The Religion of the Future"). This regret is not noticeable 
among the first sceptics (such for instance, as the philosophers of the 
eighteenth century) who destroy with a marvellous joy without 
feeling the need of any belief, engrossed as they are with their work 
of destruction and the vivid consciousness of exerting their strength. 

41. Heraclitus conceived the stars as meteors lighting themselves 
at certain times at receptacles prepared for the purpose, as a kind of 
cauldrons which by turning their dark side to us produced phases, 
eclipses, etc. Anaxagoras thinks that the vault .of the sky is of 
stone and conceives the sun and stars as so many stones on fire. 
Cosmos Indicopleustes pictures to himself the world as an oblong 
chest, of which the earth constitutes the bottom, at the four sides 
rise strong walls and the sky forms the arched lid. The Hebrews 
conceived the sky as a molten looking glass (Job xxxvii. 18) sup- 
ported by pillars (Job xxvi. 11) ; above which are the upper waters, 
dropping through it by means of channels or grated windows and 
thus making the rain (Psalms lxxviii. 23 ; Gen. vii. 11 ; viii. 2). 
Strepsiades concocts for himself a system of similar meteorology, 
only a little more burlesque (Aristoph., Clouds, line 372). 

42. Shall I say that we are justified in already suspecting some- 
thing of the kind ? The final term of progress being, in fact, a con- 
dition in which there will be only one being, a state in which all 
existing matter will beget a unique resultant, which will be Cod ; 
in which Cod the universe will be the soul of the universe, and the 
universe the body of God, and in which, the period of individuality 
having been traversed, the unity which is not the exclusion of the 
individuality, but the harmony and combination of individualities, 
shall reign alone ; we may conceive, I say, that in such a condition, 
which willbe the result of the blind efforts of all that has lived, in 
which exact individuality down to the tiniest insect will have had 
its share, every individuality will be found again, as in the distant 
sound of an immense concert. This, at any rate, is the way in which 
I like to understand it. See some admirable pages of Spiridion, 
though they are presented in too substantial a form. 



Notes. 469 

43. An admirable expression of Schiller. 

44. I am specially alluding here to France. The successes of M. 
Ronge and of the German Catholics prove that a religious move- 
ment is not altogether impossible in Germany. The constant 
apparition of new sects, with which the Catholics twit the Protes- 
tants as a sign of weakness, proves on the contrary that the sentiment 
of religion is still alive among them, seeing that it still possesses the 
power of creating. There is no danger of such a thing happening 
in France, everything has been battened down for ever and aye. 
There is nothing more dead than that which no longer stirs. Several 
facts also attest that the religious power of production is not extinct 
in England. As for the East, the Arabs show that the list of pro- 
phets is not closed, and the succe'sses of the Wahhabites proved that 
the advent of another Mahomet is not among the impossibilities. I 
have often thought that a clever European acquainted with Arabic 
and presenting a legend professing to have some connection with a 
branch of the Prophet's family, and in addition to this preaching the 
doctrines of fraternity and equality, so likely to be properly under- 
stood by the Arabs, might with eight or ten thousand men conquer 
the Mussulman East, and create a movement analogous to that of 
Islamism. 

45. Fichte in the work in which he shows at its best his admir- 
able moral sense, has forcibly expressed this priestly mission of 
science. (" Of the Destiny of the Savant and the Man of Letters," 4th 
Lesson. See also his " Method to attain a happy life," 4th Lesson.) 

46. This is so true that entire peoples have been without such a 
religious system, for instance the Chinese who have never known 
anything but a code of natural morality, without the slightest mythi- 
cal belief. The worship of Fo or of Buddha is, as is well known, 
utterly foreign to China. 

47. How can one help regretting at the same time the deplorable 
nullity to which the provinces seem condemned, for want of a great 
literary movement and institutions ? When we come to consider 
that every small town in the Italy of the sixteenth century had its 
grand master painter and master musician, and that every town of 
3000 inhabitants in Germany is a literary centre with a printing 
press, devoted to works of science, a library and often a university ; 
when we consider all this we feel grieved at the want of initiative of 
a great country, reduced to the servile imitation of her capital. The 
distinction between Parisian good taste and provincial bad taste is 
the consequence of the same intellectual organization ; but it so 
happens that this distinction is as mischievous to the capital as to the 
provinces ; it invests the question of taste with an exaggerated im- 
portance. All this is a proof of the somewhat melancholy proposi- 
tion that art, science and literature do not flourish among us in con- 
sequence of an innate and spontaneous need, as in ancient Greece, as 
in fifteenth century Italy ; for with us, in the absence of stimulation 
from without there is no production. 

48. The Germans Avho have studied our system of public educa- 
tion maintain that there are only certain courses at the lyceums, such 



470 Notes. 

as for instance those of philosophy, that remind them of German 
University teaching. See L. Halm, " Das Unterrichtswesen in Frank- 
reich," Breslau, 1848. 2 te Theil. 

49. The following is the programme of a University Commemora- 
tion at Koenigsberg. " Conditi Prussiarum regni memoriam anni- 
versariam die xviii Jan. mdcccxl in auditorio maximo celebrandam 
indicunt, prorector, director, cancellarius et Senatus Academice 
Albertince. Inest dissertatio de nominum tertice declinationis vicis- 
situdine. ... G. B. Winer made up the programmes of a dozen 
academical solemnities with a series of dissertations on the use of 
verbs compounded with a preposition in the New Testament. 

50. See the Transactions of the Annual Congresses of the Ger- 
man philologists. Verhandlungen der Versammlungen Deutscher 
Philologen und Schuhnamner. 

51. Malebranche in his admirable but too severe chapter on Mon- 
taigne, had already called him tin pedant a la cavaliere (a free and 
easy pedant). Pascal, the Logicians of Port-Poyal and Malebranche 
thoroughly appreciated this innocent pretension on the part of the 
author of " the Essays." 

52. This is so true, that the same sentiment can furnish poesy, 
eloquence, philosophy, according to the manner in which it is made 
to vibrate, almost in the same way as the divers vibrations of the 
same fluid produce heat and light. 

53. " Stobams, Apophth.," 8. ii. p. 44, Edit Gaisford. 

54. Quintilian was perfectly right when he said ; Grammatica 
plus habet in recessu quam fronte promittit. 

55. See the history of classical philology in antiquity (" Ge- 
schichte der Klassissichen Philologie im Altherthum "), by M. 
Graefenhan, Bonn, 1843-46. The following are the various sub- 
jects he includes in it : 1° Grammar and its various branches ; 
Rhetoric, Lexilogy (Etymology, Synonymy, Lexicography, Glosso- 
graphy, Onomatology, Dialectography). — 2° Exegesis, allegorical, 
verbal, Commentaries of the Rhetoricians, of the Grammarians, of 
the Sophists, Scholia, Paraphrases, Translations, Imitations. — 3° 
Criticism of Texts, literary criticism (authenticity, etc.) criticism, 
aesthetics. — 4° Erudition, Theology, Mythology, Politics, Chro- 
nology, Geography, Literature (Compilers, Abridgers, Bibliography, 
Biography, Literary History), History and Theory of the Fine Arts. 
— M. Haase in the Jena Journal smartly criticises the use of so vast 
a syllabus. (Neue Jenaische Literatur-Zeitung, Febr. 1845, !N° 
35—37). The school of Heyne and of Wolf understood by philology 
the thorough knowledge of the antique world (Greek and Roman) 
in all its aspects, so far as it is necessary to the perfect understand- 
ing of these two literatures. 

56. This is how antiquity understood it. Grammar was the ency- 
clopedia not for positive science itself, but as a necessary means to 
the understanding of authors. Everything was reduced to this 
literary aim. The most complete enumeration of all that an antique 
grammarian had to know will be found in the elogium of Statius on 
his father (" Sylv.") 



Notes. 47 1 

57. An epigram of Crates of Mallos ; " The grammarian is the 
mason, the critic is the architect." Wegener, " De aula Attalica ; " 
Collection of the fragments of Crates. 

58. I am speaking only of the Scholastic Middle-Ages — from the 
eleventh to the fifteenth, centuries. The rhetoricians of the Carlo- 
vingian period are truly the successors of the Roman grammarians 
and are, if anything, too philological in the narrow and literal sense. 
Roger Bacon in whom we find the first spark of the modern spirit 
and who almost alone, during the space of ten centuries, understood 
science as we understand it, already foresaw the benefits of philology. 
He devoted the third part of the " Opus Majus " to demonstrating 
the usefulness of the study of ancient languages (Creek, Arabic, 
Hebrew) and propounds perfectly just views on this delicate subject. 
The study of languages is to him no longer a means of exercising 
the trade of interpreter or translator, as it nearly always was in the 
Middle-Ages ; it is an instrument of scientific and literary criticism. 

59. We can say as much with regard to the knowledge of Greek 
literature possessed by the Syrians, the Arabs and other Orientals, 
(except perhaps the Armenians). It was crude in the extreme, 
because it was not philological. 

60. These are his words : " I have placed the prince of poets by 
the side of Plato, the prince of philosophers ; and I am obliged to 
content myself with looking at them, seeing that Sergius is absent 
and that death has deprived me of Barlaam, my old master. Some- 
times I console myself by casting a glance at that masterpiece, at 
others I embrace it and exclaim with a sigh. " With what pleasure, 
oh, great man, would I listen to thee, if death had not closed one of 
my ears (Barlaam) and absence had not rendered the other useless 
(Sergius) ! " (Epist. Var., xx. Opp. pp. 998, 999). 

61. To get a clear understanding of the character of ancient criti- 
cism, see the excellent article of M. Egger on Aristarchus (Revue 
des deux Mondes, 1 Feb. 1846). 

62. Aristarchus Homeri versum negat quern non probat. One 
could have wished that Porson, Brunck, and a good many other 
German critics had not chosen this strange means of becoming 
Aristarchi. 

63. -It is thus that European students of Arabic literature are 
quite justified in believing that they understand the Koran better 
than the Arabs. It is thus again that the modern Hebrew scholar 
corrects several explanations of ancient texts given in Hebrew books 
of more modern composition, such as for instance in the " Chronicles " 
(or Paraleipomena) and point out in the ancient books themselves 
etymologies more than doubtful. None of our philologists pretend 
to know Greek better than Plato, or Latin better than Varro, yet 
not one among them scruples to correct the etymologies of Plato 
and Varro. 

64. The real " manuals " of antiquity are the compilations of the 
fifth and sixth centuries, those of Marcianus Capella, of Isidore of 
Seville, of Boethius, etc. The deluge of elementary books is also 
with us but a recent fact and decidedly not a sign of progress. In 



472 Notes. 

a system of education pretending to any vitality the child has to per- 
form for himself the labour spared to him by these artificial means — 
a labour of immense advantage to his originality. The seventeenth 
century acquired a better knowledge of Latin in the authors them- 
selves, or even in Despauteres than we did in Lhomond or than 
others are likely to do in even better grammars. la this as in many 
other things people have been beguiled by the sophism ; " Our 
fathers did wonders with comparatively imperfect methods. What 
will not our children do when everything is regulated and perfected." 
In gymnastic exercises the perfection of the dumb-bell or Indian 
club is of no importance. 

65. Polybius devotes a book of his history to the most elementary 
notions of geography and pauses to explain the four points of the 
compass, etc., as curiosities of great interest. Strabo (" Geogr.," 
Book VIII. init.) tells us that Ephorus and several others did the 
same. Let us suppose for a moment M. Thiers beginning his " His- 
tory of the Revolution " with a short course of cosmography. The 
undergraduate of to-day smiles at the animated controversy of 
Cicero against Tiro on the knotty question whether all the cities of 
the Peloponnesus are seaports and whether there are any ports in 
Arcadia. (" Letter to Atticus," Book iv. 2.) 

66. The ancients never definitely departed from the narrow point 
of view according to which aesthetics are supposed to supply the 
rules of literary composition, as if every work ought to be judged 
according to its conformity with a given type, and not by the amount 
of positive beauty it presents. One single rule may be given for the 
production of the beautiful ; " Elevate your soul, feel nobly and say 
what you feel." The beauty of a work lies in the philosophy it 
contains. 

67. The reformers of the sixteenth century are philologists. In 
the eighteenth century the work is accomplished under the banner 
of the positive sciences. D'Alembert and the " Eucyclopedie " are 
characteristic of this new spirit. 

68. What, then, would be the result if to scientific experiment 
one could add practical experiment on life ? Saint-Simon as an 
introduction to philosophy led the most active life possible, trying 
all kind of conditions, all kind of enjoyments, all the ways of seeing 
and feeling, nay, creating for himself fictitious relations that do not 
exist or rarely present themselves in reality. There is no doubt 
that the habit of life does teach as much as books, and constitutes 
a culture to those who have no other. The only uncultivated man 
(inhumanus) is he who has not been able to partake of either 
practical or scientific culture. 

69. To avoid a misunderstanding which would strangely distort 
my real views, I must repeat that in the whole of the foregoing I 
have taken the word " philology " in the sense of the ancients, as 
synonymous with polymathy ; ws <f>iX6Xoyo<; eort kol'i 7roAuA.oyos (Plato, 
Legg. i., 641, E). — " Quce quidem erant cf>i\6\oya et dignitatis »/««," 
says Cicero speaking of certain demands he had addressed to Cleo- 
patra. ("Ad Atticum," lib. xv., ep. xv.) 



Notes. 473 

70. Thus (torn, v., pp. 47, 48) M. Comte prophesies a priori that 
the comparative study of language will lead to the recognition of 
their unity as a historical fact ; " for," he says ; " each kind of 
animal has only one cry." As a matter of fact, the result has been 
precisely the reverse. 

71. The visions of the pseudo Daniel are in my opinion the most 
ancient essay on the philosophy of history, and on that account 
remain very interesting. 

72. The trouble taken by M. Jouffroy to invest the word " philo- 
sophy " with a special meaning arises from his not having paid 
sufficient attention to the conventional sense attributed to the word 
in France. (See his memoir on " The Organisation of the Philosophical 
Sciences.") 

73. "Cicero, Tuscul," v. 3, there attributed to Pythagoras. 

74. M. Villemain, after having read the general part of his " Cours 
sur les Mammiferes," wrote to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire ; " Natural 
history thus understood is the foremost of all philosophies." One 
might say the same of all the sciences, were they treated by Geoffroy 
Saint-Hilaires. 

75. This must be admitted even in the ideas of ancient theism, 
since according to that conception of the system of things, God is 
considered as no longer creating in time, but as having created 
everything in the beginning. 

76. The true psychology is the poem, the novel, the comedy. 
There are a great many things that can only be expressed in that 
way. What we call psychology, for instance that of the Scotch, is 
only a ponderous and abstract way, without any corresponding 
advantages, of expressing that which subtle intellects had felt long 
before the theorists reduced it to formulas. 

77. Says M. Michelet ; "Let us gather round, and listen to, this 
young master of olden times. He has no need, in order to instruct 
us, to go very deeply into what he says, but he is like a living eye- 
witness ; he was there, he knows the whole story best." (" Du 
Peuple," p. 212.) 

78. M. Ozanam shows clearly enough, without any special plead- 
ing, that Dante conceived the unity of humanity in a manner almost 
as advanced as that of the moderns. Christianity in virtue of its 
catholicity made a long stride in the direction of this idea. Never- 
theless it is only towards the latter end of the eighteenth century 
that it appears to us in distinct outline. • Old French humanity was 
a virtue or a moral quality but with a good many shades that explain 
the transition. " I give it you in the name of humanity ; " says 
Moliere's Don Juan. " I know no word written in the seventeenth 
century which conveys a more advanced idea." 

79. M. de Maistre pushes the paradox so far as to deny the very 
existence of human nature and its unity. " I know Frenchmen, 
Englishmen, Germans," he says ; " I do not know men." We out- 
siders are under the impression that the aim of nature is enlightened 
man, be he French, English, or German. 

80. The psychological analysis of the faculties as given by the 



474 Notes. 

Indian philosophers is utterly different from our own. The names 
of their faculties are untranslatable for us ; at times their faculties 
comprise several of ours under a common name ; at others they 
subdivide ours. I have heard M. Burnouf compare this divergence 
to that of pieces cut by a punch out of the same surface, or, better 
still, out of two maps of the same region, drawn at different periods, 
and placed above one another. Place a map of Europe according 
to the treaties of 1815 above a map of Europe in the sixth century ; 
the rivers, the seas, the mountains will coincide, but not the ethno- 
graphical and political divisions, though even there certain groups 
remain unchanged. 

81. "A Dissertation on the Theology of the Chinese, with a view 
to the Elucidation of the most appropriate term for expressing the 
Deity in the Chinese Language, by M. H. Medhurst, 1847, in 8°." 
See also the report of M. Mohl, Asiitic Journal, Aug. 1848, p. 160. 

82. " Cours de Litterature Dramatique," vol. i. ch. xvii. 

83. KaAos in the Greek sense. 

84. The defect of most of our elementary grammars lies in their 
substituting rules and processes for a rational history of the mechan- 
ism of the language. This is especially disgusting in the case of 
ancient languages, which, properly speaking, had no rules but a 
living organization the actual consciousness of which still existed. 

85. "When once one has found what is fitting and beautiful, one 
ought never to change," says Fleury. There are still people who 
regret that the world no longer writes in the style of Louis XlVth's 
time, as if that style were suitable to our mode of thought. 

86. The same progress has occurred in mathematics. The ancients 
considered quantity in its actual being, the moderns^ take it in its 
generation, in its infinitesimal element. It is the immense revolution 
of the differential calculus. 

87. India alone deserves in some respects serious consideration as 
capable of furnishing positive documents to science. We have still 
much to learn from Indian metaphysics. The most advanced pro- 
positions of modern philosophy which here are within the ken of 
only a very small minority, are there official doctrines. India ought 
to have nearly as good a right as Greece to furnish themes for art. 
I have not given up all hope that one day our painters will borrow 
subjects from Indian mythology as they do from Greek mythology. 
Narayana lying on his lotus bed, contemplating Brahma who slowly 
emerges from his navel, Lachmi reposing under his eyes, would not 
this afford a picture comparable to the most beautiful Greek con- 
ceptions ? Mathematicians will also find in the Indian theory a 
number of highly original algorithms. 

88. The modern East is a corpse. There has been no education 
for the East. It is as little ripe to-day for liberal institutions as in 
the first days of history. It has been the lot of Asia to have enjoyed 
a charming and poetic childhood, and to perish before arriving at 
manhood. It seems like a dream to think that Hebrew poesy the 
Moallacat and the admirable literature of India have sprung from a 
soil, in our own day so dead, so utterly burnt up. Ths sight of a 



Notes. 475 

Levantine excites in me the most painful feelings when I reflect 
that this pitiful personification of stupidity or cunning hails from 
the country of Isaiah and of Antara, from the country of the 
mourners for Thamruuz, of the worshippers of Jehovah, where 
Mosaism and Islamism first appeared, where Jesus preached ! 

89. Hence the aversion to, or the suspicion of, the literatures of 
the East, to profess which is considered good taste in France, an 
aversion no doubt due to a certain extent to the worthless criticism 
too often brought to bear upon these literatures, but still more to 
our national habit of thought, which is too exclusively literary and 
not sufficiently scientific. " Do what we will," says M. Saint-Beuve, 
" we in France do not care to lose sight of the Hellenic horizon 
without knowing the reason why." Be it so, but why this incurable 
distrust in presence of methods offering every guarantee ? Dugald 
Stewart in his "Philosophy of the Human Understanding" (1827) 
is still under the impression that Sanskrit is a worthless jargon com- 
pounded haphazard of Greek and Latin. 

90. After all Voltaire only followed the track of the apologists. 
The latter took the Bible in the light of an absolute work, irre- 
spective of time and space ; Voltaire criticizes it as he would have 
criticized a work of the eighteenth century, and from that point of 
view he finds in it, as a matter of course, not a few absurdities. 

91. Hence the pedantry of all classical pretension. We must 
leave each century to create its own form and original expression. 
Literature goes on devouring its forms in proportion to their be- 
coming exhausted by the wear and tear to which it subjects them, 
for literature is bound to be contemporary with the nation. M. 
Guizot justly points out that the true literature of the fifth and 
sixth centuries consists no longer of colourless essays by the belated 
rhetoricians of the Roman schools, but of popular works embodying 
the Christian legend. 

92. "Lecture of M. Buruouf at the Meeting of the Five Acade- 
mies," 25th October, 1848. 

93. The great progress of literary history in our days consists in 
its having drawn attention to origins and declines. That which 
occupies us most was never so much as thought of by Laharpe. 

94. " Verhandlungen der Versammlungen Deutscher Philologen 
and Schulmanner," Bonn, 1841.— See also a lecture of M. Creuzer 
on the same subject, at the Congress at Mannheim, 1839. 

95. That which interests us most in ancient writings is the very 
thing to which their contemporaries^never gave a thought ; namely, 
peculiar manners and customs, historical traits, linguistic facts, etc. 

96. It is not unusual in Brittany to enclose the head of the dead 
in a box of wood shaped like a small chapel, with a heartshaped 
opening in front, and it is through this that the head is supposed 
to look upon the outer world. Care is taken to dispose the head 
in such a fashion as only to show the eye from the outside. From 
time to time those relics are buried and the procession passes round 
the place of interment every Sunday. 

97. It is on this account that the man of the people is far more 



476 Notes. 

sensitive to patriotic glory than the more deeply thinking man, who 
possesses a pronounced individuality of his own. The latter may 
stand out from the masses by his personal qualities, by his talents, 
his titles, his wealth. The man of the people, on the contrary, who 
possesses none of these takes unto himself, as a patrimony, as it 
were, the national glory and identifies himself with the masses who 
have accomplished these great things. It is his own, his patent of 
nobility, and herein lies the secret of this almost universal adoption 
of Napoleon by the people. The glory of Napoleon is the glory of 
those who can lay claim to no other. 

98. And, again, those who know how most of these reviews are 
written are of opinion that in many cases, the monographer cannot 
reckon on having a single reader. The great art of reviewing con- 
sists no longer, as in the time of Freron, in judging of the tohole 
from the preface. The modern reviewer merely takes the title as 
a peg on which to hang any amount of rigmarole on the same 
subject as the author. 

99. The historians of the seventeenth century who professed to 
write and flattered themselves that they were read, Mezerai, Velly, 
Daniel, are nowadays completely shelved, while the works of Du 
Cange, Baluze, Duchesse and the Benedictines who never professed 
to do more than collect materials are still as fresh as on the day 
they were published. 

100. The perfection of the Parthenon consists above all in the 
fact that the parts not intended to be seen are as carefully executed 
as those intended to be seen. So in science. 

101. Eugene Burnouf. "Comment on the Yacna," pref. p. v. 
See also in the Journal des Savants, Ap. 1848, some excellent 
reflections by M. Biot on the respect due to anterior works. 

102. We are compelled to say as much with regard to the know- 
ledge of Greek literature, of the Arabs of the Middle-Ages. 

103. Herewith an example which will prove interesting to others 
besides theologians. With reference to the celebrated passage ; 
" Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo." NUNC AUTEM regnum 
meum non est hinc (John xviii. 36) several schools with widely 
different intentions have insisted on the vvv Si, and, translating it 
by now have deduced different consequences from it. This inaccurate 
remark would not have been so frequently repeated if it had been 
known that this idiom vvv Se is the literal translation of a Hebrew 
locution (ve-atta) which serves as an adversative conjunction con- 
noting no idea of time. The same locution in Creek and Latin is em- 
ployed to denote ; and, moreover, but. The passage, therefore, should 
simply be translated ; " But my kingdom is not of this world." 
Another of the most important and liveliest discussions in the whole 
of Biblical exegesis ("Isaiah," ch. liii.) turns entirely on the use of 
a pronoun (lamai). 

104. Translation of the Bhagavata-Purana by M. Burnouf, torn, 
i. pref. pp. iv., clxii., clxiii. 

105. M. Auguste Comte has paid great attention to this difficult 
problem and proposes as a remedy for the dispersion caused by 



Notes. 477 

specialities the creation of an additional speciality, namely that of 
savants who without being specialists in any particular department, 
should occupy themselves with the generalities of all the sciences. 
(" Cours de Philosophie Positive," torn. L, 1st Lesson, pp. 30, 31, 
etc.) 

106. By the way, I can see only one means of saving this precious 
collection and keeping it available for use, that is, to close it to all 
further publications and to declare that no book posterior, say, to 
1850 shall be admitted. A separate library should be established 
for more recent publications. There is evidently a limit beyond 
which the wealth of a library becomes an obstacle to research, when 
its abundance becomes truly poverty on account of the impossibility 
of finding one's way about it. This limit, I believe has already been 
reached. 

107. The burdens imposed on the taxpayer to this intellectual 
end are in reality a service rendered to him. He profits by the 
outlay of his money in a way for which he was not sufficiently 
enlightened to wish deliberately. The state affords the taxpayer, 
often an inveterate materialist, the opportunity — a rare one in his 
life — of performing an idealistic work. The day he pays his taxes 
is really the best in his life, for on that day he expiates his egotism 
and sanctifies his property, often ill-gotten and as often ill-applied. 
As a rule rates and taxes are the best applied part of the fortune of 
the layman and sanctify the rest. It is analogous to libation among 
the customs of antiquity — an art of high idealism, a touching offer- 
ing to the invisible, the useless, the unknown, which transforms a 
vulgar into an ideal act. Taxes, almost wholly applied to civilizing 
purposes, legitimize, as it were, by their supra-sensible significance 
the wealth of the farmer and the tradesman ; at any rate they are 
the best employed part of it. Wealth, under such conditions, from 
being profane, becomes to a certain extent sacred. In our days taxes 
are the equivalent of the part devoted under the old system by each 
man to the Church and to pious works, " for the sake of his soul." 
For the sake of the taxpayer himself we ought to make this part as 
large as possible, without, however, giving the taxpayer the true 
reason which he would never understand. 

108. It must be admitted that in that case they would not have 
existed at all. The thinker never lives by the produce of his thought. 
Copernicus did not live by his discoveries, he lived by his strict 
attendance in the choir at Thorn, where he was a canon. The 
Benedictines of the seventeenth century lived upon ancient founda- 
tions designed solely for monastic practices. In our days the thinker 
and the savant live by their teaching, a social employment which 
has scarcely anything in common with science. 

109. The typical sample of that science of the grand seigneur 
who flourishes a horsewhip is M. de Maistre. One could make a 
collection of the blunders he perpetrates with the infallibility of a 
perfect gentleman. Oratio he tells us, comes from os and ratio (the 
reasoning from the lips, which he fancies is admirably profound), 
ccscutire, ccecus ut ire; sortir, sehorstir ; maison is a Celtic word ; 



478 Notes. 

sopha comes from the Hebrew, from the root saphan, which, he says, 
means to elevate, whence comes the word sofetim, judge, the educa- 
tors of the peoples (another profound meaning) ! Unfortunately the 
root saphan is unknown to any student of Hebrew, and the root 
schafat, whence is derived the word "judges" does in no way 
mean to elevate or to educate. What matters ? It is thus that 
genius coruscates. 

110. See a magnificent page at the end of Laplace, " Systeme du 
Monde ;" 1st Edition. 

111. See in the work of an English missionary, Robert Moffat 
("Twenty-three Years in South Africa," pp. 84, 157, 158), some 
curious instances of myth improvised on the spot. " I saw one day 
a child Avho after thinking for some time all at once seriously main- 
tained, and with strange persistency that a few days before it had seen 
a human head in the sun. Now, it was very patent that this idea 
had just sprung up in his mind, in combination perhaps with some 
reminiscence of a passage in an almanac." This is the process that 
presides at the formation of the most ancient myths ; the dream 
affirmed. 

112. Where is life more simple than in the animal ? Malebranche, 
one day kicks a bitch who is about to litter. Fontenelle is shocked. 
"What does it matter?" replies the hard Cartesian, "do not you 
know she does not feel it ? " Father Poirson thus proves that 
animals have no soul ; suffering is the penalty of sin ; now, animals 
have not sinned, ergo, they cannot suffer ; ergo, they are mere 
machines. Father Bougeant traverses the proposition by supposing 
that animals are demons, consequently, that they have sinned. 

113. No one has demonstrated these laws better than M. Fauriel. 
See the analysis of his course of lectures in 1836 by M. Egger in a 
series of articles in the Journal de V Instruction Publique of that 
year, and the excellent notice by M. Ozanam of his illustrious 
predecessor {Correspondant 10 May 1845). 

114. " Antar " though it has become the centre of a very 
characteristic cycle, is not an epic. Everything in it is individual 
and though the national pride of Arabia is its primary texture, no 
national cause is sufficiently brought into play to justify us in rank- 
ing this beautiful composition in any higher category than that of 
the novel. 

115. As a set-off, the Semites with remarkable facility have con- 
ceived in God other relations, such as paternal, filial, distinctions of 
power, of attributes ("Cabbala," etc.). 

116. The efforts that have been made to trace back the laws which 
determine the succession of the Greek systems to Indian philosophy, 
are almost chimerical. It cannot be maintained that the law of the 
development of the Semitic lauguages is from synthesis to analysis, 
as is the case in the Indo-Gernianic languages. In the same way 
modern Armenian appears to have much more syntax and synthetic" 
construction than ancient Armenian in which the dissection of 
thought is pushed to a much more extended limit. Nor can we say 
that modern Chinese is more analytic than ancient Chinese, seeing 



Notes. 479 

that on the contrary, the inflections in the latter are richer, and the 
expression of relations more exact. On these different sides the 
laws are analogous but not the same, albeit they are always perfectly 
rational, because of the individual element of each race which 
modifies the result. All formulas are partial because they are only 
moulded on certain particular cases. 

117. M. Auguste Comte, for instance, claims to have found the 
definite law of the human understanding in the succession of three 
conditions, theological, metaphysical and scientific. This is, no doubt, 
a formula containing a great part of the truth ; but how can Ave 
credit it with explaining everything ? M. Comte commences by 
saying that he only treats of Western Europe (" Philosophie Posi- 
tive," torn. v. pp. 4, 5). Everything beyond is a mere imper- 
tinence not Avorth considering. And in Europe he only concerns 
himself with the development of science. Poetry, religion, imagina- 
tion, all these are ignored. 

118. By taking the history of philosophy to mean the history of 
the human intellect, and not the history of a certain number of 
speculations. 

119. Most of the popular judgments and proverbs are of this kind, 
and express a true fact, complicated by a fictitious cause. The 
simple statement of fact is one of the most difficult things to the 
people ; they ahvays mix some apparent explanation with it. When 
nursemaids aver that an angel icatches over children, they express 
a true fact, viz. ; that little children do not hurt themselves in the 
least under circumstances in which grown up people would hurt 
themselves severely, but not perceiving the cause of this, they con- 
sider it more easy to ascribe the cause to a guardian angel. The 
explanation of illnesses by attributing them to devils, which is so 
continually taken for granted in the Gospels has its oavu origin in 
the same intellectual process. 

120. Islamism only began to gather strength one or two centuries 
after the death of the prophet, and since then it has always gone on 
consolidating itself by the power of established dogma. It has been 
proved that the immense majority of those 'who followed the hardy 
Koreishite had not the slightest religious faith in him. After his 
death it was seriously discussed whether they should not abandon 
his religious work and only continue his political work. 

121. This, of course, does not impair the originality of that divine 
product. The learned Jews often try to prove that Jesus has stolen 
the whole of his doctrine from Moses and the prophets, and that 
what has been called Christian morality is in reality nothing but 
Jewish morality. This would be true if a religion consisted of a 
given number of dogmatic propositions, and morality of sundry 
aphorisms. Most of those aphorisms being very simple and of all 
ages, there are no new discoveries to be made as regards morality. 
Originality in morals lies merely in an indefinable touch and in a 
new way of feeling. In order to test this we have merely to place 
side by side the Gospel and the collection of moral apophthegms of 
the rabbis contemporary with Jesus, the Pirke-Avoth, and to compare 
the moral impression resulting from these two books. 



480 Notes. 

122. Sse in Voltaire's " Dictionnaire Philosophiq'ue " the charm- 
ing article " G-argantua " in which by arguments similar to those of 

- the apologists it is proved that the marvellous exploits recorded in 
the history of Gargantua admit of no doubt. Rabelais bears witness 
to them ; no historian has refuted them ; the sceptical Lamotte Le 
Vayer was inspired with p- ah respect for them, as not to have 
breathed a single word u. ..cerning them. These prodigies were 
performed in the sight of the whole world. Rabelais, who testifies 
to having seen them, was neither deceived nor a deceiver. If he 
had departed from the truth, the newspapers would have soon 
brought him to book. And, if that history were not true, who 
would have dared to imagine it ? The great proof of its being 
worthy of belief is that it is incredible, etc. In fact, the defect of 
the critical system of the supernaturalists is to judge all the periods 
of the human understanding by the same test. 

123. When the Arabs had adopted Aristotle as the grand master 
of science they wove around him a miraculous legend as if he had 
been a prophet. They pretended that he had been taken away from 
heaven on a column of fire, etc. 

124. It is strange that Europe should have adopted as the basis 
of her spiritual life the books least adapted to her, the literature of 
the Hebrews, the work of another race and emanating from a spirit 
different from her own. As a matter of course she only accom- 
modates herself to them by entirely misconceiving their meaning. 
The Vedas would by far have a better claim to be the sacred book 
of Europe than the Bible. They at least are truly the work of our 
forefathers. 

125. In the East an ancient book is always inspired, whatever 
may be its contents. There is no other criterion Avith regard to the 
canonicity of a book. As for primitive epochs, every book, from the 
very fact of its being a written book, was sacred. For did it not 
treat of things divine ? Was not its author a priest, in direct com- 
munication with the gods ? The conception of the profane book, 
the individual work, good, bad or indifferent, of this man or that, 
belongs to a later period. 

126. A few months ago, I heard a much-admired preacher in the 
pulpit of Notre-Dame classify the religions in the following manner ; 
" There are three religions : Christianity, Mahometanism, Paganism." 
This is exactly as if someone were to classify the animal kingdom 
by saying ; " There are three kind of animals : men, horses, and 
plants." 

127. I am not referring to China. That strange nation is perhaps 
the least religious and the least supernaturalistic of all. Her sacred 
books are nothing more than classics, much the same as " the 
ancients " are to us, or at least as they were to our classical scholars. 
In this lies perhaps the secret of Chinese mediocrity. It is a beau- 
tiful thing to dream, not like India, for ever, but to have dreamt 
during one's childhood ; there remains a beautiful perfume of it 
during our waking hours and a whole tradition of poesy on which to 
fall back when age has chilled the imagination. 



Notes. 481 

128. The religion of the Nomadic Semites is exceedingly simple. 
It is the patriarchal worship of the only God, pure, chaste, without 
creed or symbols, without mysteries, without orgies. All those 
grand systems of Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian symbolism are not of 
Semitic origin, and disclose a different kind of spirit, much deeper, 
bolder, more inquiring. It is only in \h& sixth century before the 
Christian era that ideas of this kind were introduced among the 
Semites. There is a world-wide difference between the all-ruling 
and solitary God of Job, of Abraham, of the Arabs and those grand 
pantheistic poems, disclosed to us by the Egyptian and Assyrian 
monuments. It appears, moreover, that the primitive worship of 
Egypt came very near Semitic simplicity and that the polytheistic 
symbolism was a foreign importation. 

128a. The Arabs, to use the accepted phrase, have certainly 
shown a philosophic and scientific development, but their science is 
wholly borrowed from Greece. We should, moreover, point out that 
Greco-Arab science by no means flourished in Arabia ; it flourished 
in the non-Semitic countries under Islamite sw.ay which adopted 
Arabic as a learned language, in Persia, in the provinces of the 
Oxus, in Morocco, in Spain. The Arabian peninsula has remained 
almost free from Hellenism and has never understood aught but the 
Koran and the ancient poems. 

129. The real mythology of the moderns ought to be Christianity, 
the monuments of which are still alive among us. But the age of 
Louis XIV th, which dogmatically took this mythology as a theology, 
could not make a poetic machinery of it. Boileau is right. To 
invest sacred truths toith the semblance of fable, is a sin. I paid a 
visit one day to M. Michelet, he led me round his drawing-room and 
pointed out for my admiration the most beautiful Christian subjects 
of the great masters, the Saint-Paul of Albert Durer ; the Prophets 
and Sibyls of Michael-Angelo, the " Disputa del Sacramento," etc., 
and then he began to comment upon them. I am certain that, 
Racine, who was a believer, had Pagan images in his drawing-room. 
If he had had Christian engravings he would have treated them as 
devotional images. Syracuse did not consider it an act of higotry 
to stamp her medals with the beautiful head of Arethusa, nor Athens 
with that of Minerva. Why then should there be an outcry about 
encroachment if we were to put Saint Martin or Saint Remi on our 
moneys ? Until people ceased to look upon Christianity as a 
Theology, they were unable to begin looking upon it as a Poesy, 
and I have often asked myself whether Chateaubriand aimed at any- 
thing more than at a literary revolution. 

130. The Mosaic prescriptions, for instance, on the abstention 
from the flesh of certain animals killed in a certain fashion, respect-- 
able enough when looked at as a means of educating humanity, and 
all of which had a highly moral and highly political justification 
with an ancient tribe of the East, to what do they amount when 
transferred to our modern States ? Merely to a good deal of incon- 
venience which obliges people of a certain religion to have their 
particular butchers who are obliged to purvey cattle according to 

2 I 



482 Notes. 

certain rules ; simply a question of the slaughter-house and the 
kitchen. 

131. The Latin authors of the Decadence, the tragedies of Seneca, 
for instance, often sound better when translated into French, than 
the masterpieces of the grand epoch. 

132. As a typical instance of this imbecile admiration consult the 
Preface to the Translation of the Psalms by La Harpe. M. de 
Maistre has very naively remarked, " To get a conception of the 
beauties of the Vulgate, select a friend tvho has no knowledge of 
H:brew and you will find how a simple syllable, a simple word, and 
an undefinable lightness of touch imparted to the phrase, will cause 
to spring forth under your very eyes beauties of the highest order." 
(" Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg," 7th Conversation.) With such a 
system, and especially with the aid of a friend who knows nothing 
of Greek, I will undertake to find beauties of the highest order in 
the most worthless translation of Homer or Pindar, independent of 
those that are there. This reminds one of Madame Dacier going 
into ecstasies about a certain passage- of Homer, because it is 
susceptible of five or six different interpretations, all equally 
beautiful. 

133. I will only point out one trait among many. We shall not 
disparage the glory of the illustrious author of "Le Genie du 
Christianisme " by refusing him the title of Hellenist. He admires 
(" Genie du Christ.," Book v., ch. i. or ii.) the simplicity of Homer 
in describing the grotto of Calypso by the simple epithet, " carpeted 
with lilac." And now let us look at the passage ; iv cnrea-a-i yXacf)v- 
potcri, XiXawfievr] ttoctiv elvai (Od. i. 15). I believe, Heaven forgive 
me, that he saw lilacs in XiXaio^ivrj. 

134. Unless one has read the exegetical works of this great man 
one can conceive no idea of his radical want of the critical faculty. 
He is exactly on a par with Saint Augustin, his master. To quote 
only one instance in point ; did riot he write a book to justify the 
policy of Louis XIV. by the Bible ? The annoyance shown by 
Bossuet at the works of Ellies Dupin, Richard Simon, Doctor Lan- 
noy in which they sounded the first notes of higher criticism, and 
the persecution he aroused against those intelligent pioneers are, 
with the exception of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
most deplorable episode in the history of the Gallican church in the 
seventeenth century. 

135. Says M. Michelet ; "The simple-minded are fond of con- 
necting and linking ; they rarely divide and analyse. Not only is 
all kind of division repugnant to their mind, but it pains them, they 
look upon it as a dismemberment. They do not like to divide life 
and to them everything seems endowed with life. Not only do they 
not divide, but the moment they find a divided or partial thing, they 
either neglect it or else join it mentally to the whole from which it 
is divided. In this lies their existence as the simple of the earth.'''' 
See the whole of this admirable passage (" Du Peuple," pp. 242, 243). 
One consequence of this simple mode of taking life is the perception 
of the physiognomy of things, which is never vouchsafed to the 



Notes. 483 

learned analysts, who only see the inanimate element. Most of the 
categories of ancient science which the moderns have excluded cor- 
responded to outward characteristics of nature which are no longer 
considered, though indeed they contain their share of the truth. 

136. Poetry itself shows an analogous onward movement. In 
primitive poesy, all the styles were confounded ; the lyrical, elegiac, 
didactic, epic elements co-existed in it in a confused harmony. Then 
came the epoch of distinguishing styles, during which objections 
would have been raised to the introduction of lyricism into the drama, 
or of the elegy into the epic. This was succeeded by the higher 
form in the grand poesy of Goethe, of Byron, of Lamartine, admit- 
ting the simultaneous introduction of all the styles. " Faust," " Don 
Juan," " Jocelyn " do not fall into any particular literary category. 

137. This turn, peculiar to the German genius, explains the 
strange progress of ideas in that country for something like the last 
quarter of a century and how after the lofty and ideal speculations 
of the grand school, Germany is now enacting her eighteenth century 
after the French manner ; hard, bitter, negative, scoffing, swayed by 
the instinct of the finite. For Germany, Voltaire comes after 
Herder, Kant, Fichte, Hegel. The writings of the young school are 
definite, destructive, realistic, materialistic. They boldly deny " the 
beyond' 1 '' {das Jenseits), that is, the supra-sensible, the religions 
under all its forms, they declare that it is fooling mankind to make 
him live in that fantastic world. Such is the sequel of the most 
idealistic literary movement presented by the history of the human 
intellect, a sequel not arrived at by logical deduction or as a neces- 
sary consequence, but by a deliberate contradiction, and in virtue of 
this foregone conclusion ; the great school has been idealistic, we are 
going to produce a reaction towards the realistic. 

138. Languages present an analogous development. Let us take 
a group of languages, comprising several dialects, such as for 
instance, the Semitic group. Certain linguists suppose that, at the 
origin, there was only one Semitic language, from which all the 
diaiects are derived by alteration ; others suppose all the dialects 
equally primitive. The truth is, it seems, that at the origin the 
various characteristics, which, by forming themselves into groups, 
became the Syriac, the Hebrew, etc, existed syncretically, though 
without, as yet, constituting independent dialects. For instance ; 
1° Confused and simultaneous existence of the dialectal varieties ; 
2° Isolated existence of the dialects ; 3° Fusion of the dialects into 
a more extensive unity. 

139. The divine Spherus of Empedocles, in which everything 
exists at first in the syncretic condition under the domination of the 
<f>iXia, previous to passing under that of Discord, j/e«<os (analysis) 
presents a beautiful picture of this grand law of divine evolution. 

140. "Le Peuple," p. 251. 

141. The most curious instance of this is M. de Talleyrand 
becoming converted at the close of his life. He had been sharp 
enough to outwit all the diplomatists of Europe, and bold enough to 
eelebrate the mass of libertv and to constitute himself a schismatic : 



484 Notes. 

but when it came to a theoretical question, he becomes weak-minded 
and credulous, seeing nothing strange in Nebuchadnezzar being 
changed into an animal, Balaam's ass conversing with his master, or 
the diplomatists of the Council of Trent receiving the aid of the 
Holy Ghost. Talleyrand, it will be said, did not admit all this. 
No ; but he would have had to admit it, if he had been consistent 
with himself. 

1 42. Fichte, who (in France, I of course mean) would have been 
set down as impious, always h id family prayer in the evening ; 
after which a few verses of a hymn were sung to the accompaniment 
of the piano. The philosopher then delivered a short homily to his 
family upon some few pages of the G-ospel of St. John, adding, as 
the opportunity suggested itself, some words of consolation or pious 
exhortation. 

143. Can a rag-picker, as he passes in front of the Tuileries, 
exclaim : " This is my work ? " Can we realize the sentiment of 
the artisans and the land tillers of Attica in presence of these 
monuments which belonged to them, which they appreciated, and 
which were in reality the expression of their thought ? 

144. One of the benefits of the Empire was that it gave the 
people heroic souvenirs and a name easy to understand and to 
idolize. Napoleon, so frankly adopted by the popular imagination, 
providing it, as he did, with a grand subject for national enthusiasm, 
will have powerfully contributed to the intellectual elevation of the 
ignorant classes, and has become for them what Homer was for 
Greece : the initiator of great deeds, causing the pulse to vibrate and 
the eye to sparkle. 

145. It is needless to say that this excuse, if it be one, never 
applies to the silly plagiarists, who imitate in cold blood the furies of 
another age. I am glad to say once for all that those who credit 
me with sympathies for any political party, especially with that 
one, would quite misinterpret my ideas. I am for France and the 
right ; for them and for nothing else. 

146. How can a member of the Academy of Moral and Political 
Sciences have come to write, now in the middle of the nineteenth 
century, such axioms as these : " Society is not human kind ; it is 
only their union. Men live for themselves and not for this chimera, 
this vain abstraction styled humanity. The destiny of a free 
state could not possibly be subordinated to any other destiny." (See 
IS Homme et la Societe, pp. 53, 81. And yet fifty years after Herder 
had written : " Man could not, even if he so willed it, live for himself 
alone. ' The beneficent influence of man upon his fellow man is 
the aim of all human society. In addition to the individual fund, 
which each one brings into play, there is the mass of capital, which, 
ever accumulating, forms the common fund of the species, etc." See 
Ueber den Charakter der Menscheit.) The bee's cell could not 
exist without the hive, so the hive has a claim to make upon the bee. 

147. What folly to take any interest in such degraded creatures, 
says the master when speaking of the negroes, though it is he who 
keeps them in a state of degradation. 



Notes. 485 

148. (Polit., book i. ch. ii. p. 8 and foil.). Aristotle goes so far as 
to say that if beauty were a mark of individual worth, the least 
handsome ought to be the slaves of those who are the handsomest. 

149. If it were only for political or external reasons that such 
important engines should be kept a close watch over. No doubt, 
but there is another question. Let me add that it is somewhat 
strange to find modern and unconcerned politicians giving salaries 
to their mortal enemies, to those who have fought them to the death, 
to those who embrace them only to stifle them or to get a profit 
out of them. 

150. The Inquisition is the logical consequence of the whole 
orthodox system. The Church will be bound, when she has the 
chance, to bring back the Inquisition, and if she does not, it is 
because she cannot. For why is this kind of repression less neces- 
sary to-day than it was in former times ? Is our opposition less 
dangerous ? Assuredly not. The reason must, therefore, be that 
the Church is weaker. We are tolerated because we cannot be 
strangled. If the Church became once more what she was in the 
Middle Ages, an absolute Sovereign, she would be bound to resume 
her maxims of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as it is declared that 
these maxims were good and beneficent. Power has always been 
the measure of the Church's toleration. In reality, this is not a 
reproach ; this is as it should be. It is a mistake to rate the orthodox 
with regard to tolerance. Ask them to renounce orthodoxy, if you 
like, but do not ask them, while remaining orthodox, to put up 
with heterodoxy. With them, it is a question of life or death. 

151. See Bossuet's. admirable sermon upon the profession made 
by Mile, de la Valliere and for the festival of Presentation. 

152. The first impression which Christianity produced upon 
barbarous peoples, subject to aristocratic and gross prejudices, was 
one of repulsion for the spiritualistic and democratic part of its 
precepts. In the Irish legends, Ossian, singing of wars, heroes, 
grand hunts, etc., is often brought forward in comparison with St. 
Patrick and his psalm-singing flock. Mihir-Nerseh, in a proclama- 
tion addressed to the Armenians, in order' to dissuade them from 
becoming Christians, asks them how they can put any faith in ill- 
clad vagabonds, who prefer men of humble estate, to persons of 
quality, and who are foolish enough to attach little importance to 
wealth. 

153. This change generally occurs in this wise. A day comes 
when the retrograde party is obliged to pose as' being persecuted 
and to lay claim to the principles which it had fought against ; for 
instance, the principles of the sovereignty of the people and of liberty. 
Even those who had so strongly repudiated them when they were 
contrary to them have found themselves brought by the force of 
things to invoke them and to insist that the heresies which they 
had dethroned should be carried to their extreme consequences. 
The new ideas can only be vanquished by themselves, or rather it ia 
they which vanquish their opponents by compelling the latter to 
have recourse to them in order to triumph. Children that you are, 

2 i 3 



486 Notes. 

do you not see that, when you think you are drawing the chariot 
of humanity backward, that it is the chariot which is dragging you 
along with it ? 

154. Cadit et sic aperiuntur oculi ejus (Num. eh. xxiv. v. 4). 

155. How singular ! a month after the constitution has begun to 
work, it stands in need of being interpreted. It is violated, says the 
one side. — Not at all, says the other. Who is to decide ? M. de 
Maistre is right ; to cut down disputes at the root, you must have 
infallibility. The worst of the business is that infallibility does not 
exist. Principles only apply to a certain extent. So Ave must give 
up the idea of discovering the definite ulterior, and maintain well- 
considered reason as the final authority. Yet it is so easy to find 
repose in the infinite, to embrace with one's whole soul a narrow and 
finite formula. The immensity of humanity excites awe ; the brain 
reals before this deep abyss. 

156. The result would be a very poetical situation and one as 
yet unknown ; a system of slavery felt and endured with delicacy 
and resignation. The slave of old was not poetical, because he was 
not regarded as a moral being. The slave of ancient comedies is au 
infamous and vile character ; he has only his baseness to console 
him ; he is not susceptible to virtuous feelings. The slave as here 
conceived would be the superior of his master, because he would 
have a better perception of what is divine and would find in love an 
escape from the hideous reality. 

157. One is sometimes tempted to ask oneself whether humanity 
was not emancipated too soon. Strong and intellectual consciences 
like our own are with much more difficulty brought to set themselves 
to a great work, being too much attached to their own will and to life. 
How is humanity, with an individual liberty as highly developed as 
ours, to conquer the desert places ? Will it be said that humanity 
has become incapable of subduing the whole universe because it has 
been prematurely set free ? Any great enterprise of this kind 
demands a first supply of men. Think of Avhat the English colonies 
cost, those of the Presbyterians and Methodists in the United States, 
for instance. Such sacrifices have become impossible now, for the 
price of human life has gone up ; the world has got into the way of 
counting the cost too closely. If a score or so of settlers fall ill 
when a colony is founded, there is at once a great outcry. Yet one 
must remember that the first generations of colonists have nearly 
everywhere been scarificed. The Icaria of M. Cabel might have 
succeeded two hundred years ago ; but in our day, and especially 
with Frenchmen, it was an absurdity. The greatest things cannot 
be done Avithout sacrifice, and religion, which prompts sacrifice, no 
longer exists. I sometimes delude myself with the hope that 
machinery and the progress of applied science will one day com- 
pensate for what humanity has lost in the way of aptitude for 
sacrifice by the progress of reflection. Man is always ready to run 
a risk, but he is less ready to face certain death. 

158. Let me assume, for instance, that chemistry were now to 
discover a means for rendering the acquisition of good food so easy 



Notes. 487 

that one would only have to stretch out the hand to take it ; it is 
certain that three-fourths of the human race would give itself over 
to idleness, that is to barbarism. One might then use the whip to 
compel them to build great social monuments, pyramids, etc. ; tyranny 
would be legitimate to secure the triumph of the mind. 

lo9. We are indignant at the way iu which man is treated in the 
East and in barbarian States, and at the small value set on human 
life. This is not so revolting when it is remembered that the 
barbarian has but little command over himself and possesses, as a 
matter of fact, much less value than civilized man. The death of a 
Frenchman is an event in the moral world ; that of a Cossack is 
little more than a physiological fact ; a machine was in motion 
which is in motion no longer. And as to the death of a savage, it is 
scarcely of more importance in the march of events than when a 
watch-spring breaks, and even this latter occurrence may have much 
graver consequences, owing to the very fact that the watch in 
question arrests the thought and excites the activity of civilized 
men. The deplorable thing is that a portion of humanity should be 
so degraded that it scarcely counts for more than the animals ; for 
all men are called to have a moral value. 

160. For instance ; it was essential for humanity that the Jewish 
nation should exist, should be hard, indestructible, made of bronze 
as it has been. By the second or third century, they had answered 
their purpose ; humanity had no further need for the Jews. The 
Jews nevertheless continue to exist like a dead branch, while, if the 
matter is looked at rather more closely, it will be seen that this dead 
branch has not been so useless as may be imagined. 

161. The picturesque is not taken sufficiently into account in the 
guidance of humanity. And yet this is of at least as much impor- 
tance as happiness. I have heard of an engineer Avho, in the tracing 
of roads, endeavoured to secure for those who travelled over them 
pretty views, at the cost of convenience and of time. That is the 
sort of man I should have liked. 

162. I do not allow that it is an unanswerable proof of immortality 
to say that it is a necessity for divine justice to repair, in another 
world, the acts of injustice which the general order of the universe 
entails in this. Our forefathers suffered and we inherit the fruits 
of their suffering. The future will gain by this. Who knows but 
that it will one day be said : "In those times there must have been 
faith, for humanity then laid the foundations, by its sufferings, of 
the better state of things which we enjoy. But for that, our fathers 
would not have had the courage to endure the heat of the day. 
But now we have the key of the enigma, and God is justified by 
the greater good of the species." So long as belief in immortality 
will have been necessary in order to render life endurable, so long it 
will have been believed. 

163. As a general rule, the barbarians were received with open 
arms. The Bishops and all the most enlightened men such as 
St. Augustine, Salvian, etc., opened their arms to them. Upon the 
other hand, the last representatives of the old society, polite, corrupt 



488 Notes. 

and effete, Sidonius Apollinaris and Aurelius Victor, heap insults 
upon them and cling to the abuses of the old Empire, without seeing 
that it was inevitably condemned to perish. 

164. Mendelssohn, already celebrated, already one of the first 
critics in Germany, was still a warehouseman in a silk shop. 
Lessing, who had come on purpose to see him, found him at the 
counter, measuring out the silk. 

165. The sordid or so-called low character of certain occupations 
might also indicate them to persons devoted to literary labour ; for 
this character would be likely to correspond either to a higher rate 
of pay ; or, what amounts to the same thing, to fewer hours of 
labour. Lowness of condition, according to worldly ideas, does not 
exist for man, regarded from a moral point of view. 

166. Gymnastics, for instance, are considered by many people as 
a useful diversion for indoor work. But would it not be more useful 
and pleasanter to follow for two or three hours the calling of 
carpenter or gardener, than to tire oneself out with movements 
which have no sort of aim ? 

167. Aristotle, Polit., book i. ch. ii. 5. (See Translation by M. 
Barthelemy St. Hilaire.) 

168. I depict to myself the mind as a tree the branches of which 
are studded with iron hooks. Study is, as it were, a cornucopia 
pouring out from the top upon this tree objects of a thousand different 
colours and shapes. The hooks do not catch all these objects 
or hold them for an indefinite time. Such an object, after having 
hung to one of the hooks for a certain time, drops, and then 
comes the turn for another. So the mind, at its different epochs, is 
as it were provided with a various assortment of things, and that, 
added to the inward modifications of its being, causes the diversity 
of its aspects. 

169. I carry the respect of the individuality so far that I should 
like to see women given a share in critical and scientific work, being 
persuaded that they would open up new views of which we have no 
idea. If we are better critics than the savants of the seventeenth 
century, it is not that we know more than they did, but that we see 
more clearly. Well, I am convinced that women would import into 
this their individuality, and would reflect the object in fresh colours. 
The socialists are quite mistaken as to the intellectual role of 
woman ; they would like to make a man of her. But woman will 
never be more than a poor sort of man. She must remain what she 
is, but must be pre-eminently what she is. She is different from but 
not inferior to man. A perfect woman is quite as good as a perfect 
man. But she should be perfect in her own way, and not by 
resembling man. She differs from him like positive from negative 
electricity, that is to say as regards sense and direction, not as 
regards essence. The negative is not inferior to the positive, but it 
goes in the opposite direction ; any quantity may be considered either 
as negative or positive at pleasure. The negative and the positive 
combined form the complete. Everything seeks for its complement, 
the positive naturally attracts the negative, the inner angle invites 



Notes. 489 

the outward angle. Thus life is divided ; all have the better part, 
and there is room for love. 

170. In his beautiful piece le Crepuscule. 

171. " We shall have all that in Paradise " a clever answer made 
by kind-hearted nuns, rather out of patience, to a scientific maniac, 
who, having gone into a hospital, bored the worthy sisters who were 
nursing him with his misplaced elucubrations. 

172. Wherever you go in our towns and public promenades, you 
will come upon barriers and notices, which are necessary, it is true, 
for the preservation of order, but which make anything like free 
action impossible. We all of us must have felt the humiliating and 
disagreeable effect which a prohibitive notice produces, even when 
one knows that it is general ; it is a limit fixed. When I walk 
through the gardens at Versailles, with a hedge on each side 
of me, I am never satisfied. I should like to go in among the 
shrubs, and that is forbidden. How monotonous our broad, straight 
roads are ! I prefer by far the crooked roads of Brittany, with the 
sheep feeding at the sides. What is more distasteful than a high 
road, what can be more charming than a pathway ? 

173. One of the most beautiful deaths conceivable is that of the 
inquisitive man, indifferent to his end, and with his attention wholly 
fixed upon the rising of the curtain which is about to take place, and 
upon the mighty problems about to be solved for him. 

174. " When he thinks he has put forth something exaggerated," 
says Goethe speaking of Albert, "something too general or doubtful, 
he keeps on limiting, modifying, adding or retrenching until nothing 
is left of his proposition." Many people will no doubt distort my 
idea, because I have not adopted that plan. 

175. Augustin Thierry, Dix Annees d' Etudes Historiqites, 
preface. 

176. Study the characters of Polus and of Kallicles in Plato's 
Gorgius. 

177. See the curious conversation with Le Maistre de Sacy pre- 
served by Fontaine. 

178. Methode pour arriver a la vie hienheureuse, last lesson. 
The whole of this lesson is an admirable one. Never did the pious 
wrath of honest souls against scepticism find more eloquent expression. 

179. One of the characteristic traits of the men about whom I am 
speaking is to affect a profound contempt for ideal art, pure and 
noble passion. They make mock at it, and are ready to say with 
Byron : " Oh ! Plato, you were only a pimp." They regard idealism 
as a piece of stupidity, and declare that they much prefer frank 
epicureanism. 

180. Or else the clever erudition of Barthelemy, which, though 
of a more elevated order, is nevertheless not the grand philosophical 
and scientific method. 

181. Acts of the Apostles, ch v., verses 38 and 39. 

182. I once saw in a wood a swarm of nasty little insects, which 
had surrounded with their webs and were sucking its green shoots 
with such a character of parasitism that one could not help feeling 



490 Notes. 

disgust. I was for a moment tempted to destroy them, but then I 
said to myself : It is not their fault if they are ugly : it is one 
way of life. It shows narrowness of mind to moralize nature and 
impose one's judgments upon her. But now I see that I was wrong : 
I ought to have killed them ; for the mission of man in nature is 
to reform what is ugly and immoral. 

183. The science which is the most devoid of an object, mathe- 
matics, is the very one which excites the most ardour, not so much by 
its truth as by the play of faculties and the power of combination 
which it implies. The pleasure which mathematics procure is of 
the same kind as that of a game of chess. None is more despotic. 
When Archimedes was absorbed in his demonstration table his slaves 
had to tear him away from it to rub him over with oil, and even 
then he would trace geometrical figures upon the oily surface of his 
body. 

184. See Note 178. 

185. " Some, seeing the place of the political government invaded 
by incapable men, withdrew. And he who asked Iioav long it was 
necessary to go on philosophizing, received this answer : ' Until 
there are no more donkey-drivers to lead our armies.' " (Montaigne, 
book i. ch. xxiv.) 

186. The wars of the giants of the Revolution have made nobles 
of us all. We are the sons of a race of heroes. Each of our fathers 
was entitled to say of himself : " I am an ancestor." You are the 
great grandchildren of crusaders ; I am the son of a soldier of the 
Revolution, and am as good as you. 

187. I assume that one of Plato's dialogues represents a conversa- 
tion in Athens really held, very different from the similar com- 
positions of Cicero, Lucian and so many others, who merely use the 
dialogue as a factitious form for embodying their ideas, without 
seeking to render any scene in real life. 

188. The presence and the essential part played by woman in our 
modern society is no doubt the cause of this. As nothing must be 
said which would go above the heads of this part of the audience, 
the circle of speech is somewhat limited. If the seven sages, at 
their banquet, had been subjected to this condition, I doubt whether 
their dissertation would have been as elevated as it was. 

189. Nouveau Journal Asiatique, vol. i. p. 345. — Compare in the 
Saint-Brandon poem the description of tbat marvellous island in 
which the monks do not grow old and receive their bread from 
heaven, in which the lamps light of themselves ; a life of silence, of 
liberty, of calm, the ideal of the monastic life amid. the water-floods. 

190. Chateaubriand was altogether wrong in looking for poetry 
in the present state of Christianity. His achievement was the 
revealing to criticism of a view of beauty which had been unnoticed 
in the Christian dogma and worship ; but he ought to have confined 
himself to the past and not have sought for poetry in the common- 
places of Jesuitism. Christianity has lost its poesy since the six- 
teenth century, and this has put him quite out of tune. Admirable 
as he is when touching the high religious string, he lapses into 



Notes. 491 

the trivialities of the preacher and the apologist when he enters into 
what I may call vestry details. In this respect Madame de Stael is 
far superior to him. 

191. I would without hesitation have taken Malebranche's formula 
Dieu est le lien des esp?*its comme Vespace est le lien des corps if it 
were not conceived from the substantial point of view, this giving it 
a somewhat coarse and inaccurate meaning. God, the spirit, the 
body, are, in the sense he attaches to them, too objective words. 

192. It is said, for instance, that God is a spirit, that He has all 
the attributes of a spirit. As spirit merely signifies everything which 
is not body, this reasoning is equivalent to saying that there are 
two classes of animals ; those which are horses and those Avhich are 
not horses. The bird is a " not-horse." The fish is a not-horse. 
Therefore the bird and the fish are of the same species, and what is 
said of the one will also apply to the other. 

193. Christianity only received its full development in the hands 
of the Greeks ; so that it did not, in its definite form, gain the 
sympathy of oriental peoples. If, upon the contrary, it had remained 
what it was for the early Judaso-Christians, for St. James let us 
say, it would have conquered the East and there would have been 
no Islam. But then, again, it would never have acquired any 
influence in Europe. 



